As Thurston County rolls out its comprehensive plan updated chapters plan as they become ready for review, county staff are looking to the community for feedback on the project dubbed “Thurston 2045.”
The county’s Community Planning and Economic Development Department hosted a public forum on Thursday, June 13, at the Yelm Community Center for Yelm residents to provide feedback on the comprehensive plan.
The comprehensive plan is the 20-year growth plan and policy document for unincorporated Thurston County, which guides topics such as land use, natural resource protection, housing, economic development, population and employment growth, and capital facilities, among others. It also is a guide for staff to create an implementation plan to ensure the suggested policies have a feasible path forward with metrics to measure progress.
At the forum, community members and residents discussed topics among themselves and with county staff and were prompted to answer a variety of comprehensive plan-related questions, such as:
How can we reduce the number of miles driven by vehicles within Thurston County?
How could we transition to using less and cleaner energy sources to power, cool and heat buildings in Thurston County?
Consider what you love about Thurston County and what you would like to see changed. Now, complete this sentence: In 20 years, I want Thurston County to be…
The county also asked attendees to identify where they have experienced warmer temperatures, wildfire events, smoke and flooding.
Miriam Villacian, Thurston County’s senior planner of public engagement, said the biggest takeaways from the conversations with attendees were how concerned they were about housing affordability and traffic in their hometown.
“Housing affordability and the need for transitional housing and all levels of housing was a big concern,” she said. “Lots of the residents were Yelm residents, and while this is kind of about Thurston County in general, a lot of the conversations focused on Yelm. The idea of the traffic in Yelm and the fact that we don’t necessarily have the infrastructure in our roads to support the growth of traffic was a concern. Clean water and water availability as we move into the future was something of a concern.”
Villacian added that community members stated how much they appreciated being able to sit around a table and talk civilly about the future of their communities.
“We had such diverse people at our table and diverse viewpoints. Everybody was just talking civilly, and that’s important in how we are setting up our future as we grow and try to accommodate the growth,” she said.
This was the first forum that the county hosted itself, but Villacian said it has provided outreach and communications about the comprehensive plan update since last year at other community events across the county. It also hosted another forum in Tenino at the Tenino Quarry House on Saturday, June 15, and another forum or open house-style presentation may take place in Rochester soon.
Villacian said the county’s goal with hosting a forum particularly in Yelm is to give southern county residents a voice and to let them know that their feedback will be incorporated as it updates the chapters of its comprehensive plan. The plan will be reviewed by various stakeholders, including communities, through the rest of this year and next. The Thurston County Commission will make a final decision on the plan in December of 2025.
To learn more about the Thurston County Comprehensive Plan update, visit https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/4486b8288f054456a99f68a3b1087664 and https://www.thurstoncountywa.gov/departments/community-planning-and-economic-development-cped/community-planning/thurston-2045.
