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Former GMA Hearings Board Lopez officer to speak at planning workshop Lopez Island, WA 11/27/02 William H. Nielsen, retired presiding officer of the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board, will be a guest speaker at a planning workshop Nov. 25, 3 p.m., at Lopez Center. Nielsen will address the Growth Management Act issues facing the county and Lopez islanders in developing a plan for Lopez Village. Residents and county commissioners have expressed concerns about the obligations that come with designation of an Urban Growth Area on Lopez Island. Developing Lopez Village without an Urban Growth Area designation would require a plan dictated largely by the pattern of development that existed in 1990, according to county planning staff. Nielsen has been a member of the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board since its initial establishment in the early 1990s, and was the presiding officer of the board for all its hearings and deliberations on San Juan County cases until his retirement just prior to the most recent hearings in Eastsound in September of this year. Background information on the Lopez Village planning program is available on the county Planning Department’s internet site at www.co.san-juan.wa.us/planning/index.html. For more information, contact Pat Mann, senior planner, at the San
Juan County Planning Department, 378-2393. |