The next phase of Wasco County 2040 will be to take new policies and strategies and, where appropriate, create or remove criteria/regulation in our Land Use and Development Ordinance (LUDO). During the Wasco County 2040, Comprehensive Plan update, process, staff, stakeholders and the community have identified many areas with the Land Use and Development Ordinance (LUDO) that need to be updated. This includes aspects to our permitting process that have created unforeseen difficulties for development.
The Wasco County LUDO update will continue the work from Wasco County 2040 in updating the permitting processes, standards and allowed uses in Wasco County. The update will also include changes to state law since 2012. The goal of this work is to improve the regulations to reflect community values, mandatory state requirements, transparency, and efficiency in permitting.
Staff anticipates the project to take approximately 3 years from start to completion. This will include staff research, stakeholder work groups, topic focused public work sessions, and public hearings. The goal is to have a completely updated LUDO by the end of 2023.
Wasco County will continue to use much of the infrastructure in place for Wasco County 2040 including comment submissions, surveys, polls, roadshow events, and public hearings. Our goal is to keep you informed throughout the next several years utilizing some of the most successful outreach methods including mailers, newspaper notices, and social media.
2021 LUDO Updates focused on procedural elements of the LUDO that will help streamline and improve permitting, as well as make the process more transparent and consistent with state law. 2022 updates will focus on adding mandatory and, potentially, optional new uses to the farm and forest zones, aligning the energy facilities chapter with updates to state law, understanding encroachment issues in military airspace, and adding a communications facility chapter. We look forward to hearing your input about how to improve these chapters. You can submit questions or comments at any time.