Leavenworth sets priorities for 2026 planning work

LEAVENWORTH —The Leavenworth City Council and Planning Commission met at the start of the Jan. 13 council meeting to discuss priorities for 2026.

The top two priorities are completing the 2026 Comprehensive Plan and Development Regulation update, as required by state law. The Comprehensive Plan must be updated to comply with the Growth Management Act, and includes a community vision, goals, policies, and action items that guide day-to-day decisions by local elected officials and city staff.

“[The Comprehensive Plan] needs to be adopted by the end of the year. We are on track to adopting at the end of summer, hopefully,” said Community Development Director Maggie Boles.

The Development Regulation update is due six months after the adoption of the Comprehensive Plan. There is an extensive list of state mandated updates, some of which include addressing co-living, manufactured housing regulations and affordable housing programs. 

“If we are on target and the [Comprehensive] Plan is adopted in July, we’re looking at tackling all of that this year and having a hearing by January,” said Boles.

Due to the anticipated workload of the Development Regulation update, Boles advised that time would be limited for other docket items this year. Additionally, the Planning Commission is already in the process of updating Conditional Use Permit (CUP) regulations and Off-Street Loading and Parking.

“There's going to be downtime like there was this past year because we're waiting for pieces to fall. So we would like to make sure that we have those things in order from you so that when the openings do come up that we can go ahead and plug and play as fast as possible,” said Planning Commissioner Simon Farivar.

Elected officials agreed that updating the Wildland Urban Interface Code (WUI), as well as reviewing and cleaning up sections of outdated code — which was requested by Council member Anne Hessburg — would require minimal time and could be quickly completed in between larger projects.

Lower on the list of considerations was a new R-3 zoning district in areas of the city with historic nonconforming lot sizes, adopting short term rental (STR) regulations, and adopting a permitting process to address life safety and business licensing requirements for STRs.

Elected officials discussed pulling the three lowest priority items off of the list completely: establishing formula retail regulations, permitting marjuana retail, and considering zone changes requested by a citizen. While formula retail regulation was considered for protecting local business owners, City Administrator Matthew Selby relayed that the city’s attorney advised that it was “not low-hanging fruit, complex, [and] ripe for litigation.”

Elected officials debated the pros and cons of allowing marjuana retail in city limits, examining the potential economic benefits, tourist reception and public feedback. Currently, the city won’t allow a business permit for something that is not federally legal. Boles noted that any code adoption would require public input, and the group agreed to leave it on for now.

“It's worth having a community conversation about it, too…We've never really had a community conversation about it,” said Hessburg.

The Leavenworth City Council will approve the final docket for 2026 during its Jan. 27 meeting.

Last year, the Planning Commission completed updates to Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) code, Housing and Land Use Appendices for 2026 Comprehensive Plan, and updates to ADU water and sewer connection requirements in the UGA.

Taylor Caldwell: 509-433-7276 or taylor@ward.media