Comprehensive Plan and Appeals

SGA engaged throughout the city’s planning process—reviewing drafts, attending meetings, and submitting comments. During this work, SGA identified areas needing clearer analysis or discussion, including growth assumptions, infrastructure planning, environmental impacts, and consistency with state requirements. The goal was to help residents follow the process and participate constructively.

SGA urged the city to take seriously findings of the independent 2024 FACET Compliance Assessment, which shows that Anacortes is not meeting core requirements of its 2010 Shoreline Master Program—particularly mitigation sequencing, critical areas review, vegetation conservation standards, bonding, and the five‑year monitoring needed to ensure no net loss of shoreline ecological functions. The DCG/Watershed review found widespread gaps in permit documentation, missing critical area reports, inconsistent mitigation plans, and a complete absence of required monitoring and enforcement. SGA emphasizes that these responsibilities fall on shoreline developers—not the City’s general fund—and calls on the Planning Commission to restore long‑abandoned monitoring provisions, strengthen SMP requirements, and adopt the FACET recommendations to ensure shoreline protection, accountability, and compliance with state law.

After adoption of the plan, SGA filed four appeals with the GMHB. These were not adversarial actions but part of the legal process for ensuring compliance with the Growth Management Act. The appeals focused on issues needing further review. This experience reinforced key lessons: public records must be accessible, planning assumptions must be transparent, residents need clear participation pathways, and accountability mechanisms like GMHB review are vital.

Smart Growth Anacortes shared this thoughtful, expert advice with the City to assist in strengthening SMP implementation and ensuring shoreline development meets environmental standards.  The following document:

• summarizes independent findings (FACET/DCG‑Watershed)

• documents SMP compliance failures by the City

• explains legal and regulatory requirements the City is not meeting

• provides SGA’s interpretation of those failures

• offers recommendations for corrective action

• requests Planning Commission action

Read SGA’s Report to City

The DCG/Watershed and FACET reports provide independent, technical evaluations of how the City of Anacortes is applying its environmental regulations, including the Shoreline Master Program (SMP), SEPA, and No Net Loss requirements. Together, these documents show that shoreline permits often lack required impact analysis, mitigation sequencing, critical areas review, as‑built verification, and the five‑year monitoring mandated by the SMP. Because these core elements are missing or inconsistently required, the City cannot demonstrate that shoreline development is maintaining ecological functions or meeting No Net Loss standards. These reports form a key part of Smart Growth Anacortes’ Comprehensive Plan appeals, documenting systemic compliance gaps that affect shoreline health, habitat protection, and long‑term planning decisions.

View FACET Report

View DCG/Watershed Report as Appendix A of FACET Report

Summary of Growth Management Hearings Board Appeals and Decision

On August 24, 2026 Ian Munce filed two related appeals in Skagit County Superior Court challenging the decisions by the Washington State Growth Management  Hearings Board (GMHB).  

Case 26-2-00984-29 argues the GMHB wrongly dismissed the SEPA issues, allowed the City to “piecemeal” environmental review, ignored public-participation failures (including a $3,000 fee for submitting policy amendments), overlooked Open Public Meetings Act concerns, and failed to require the City to “show its work” on infrastructure capacity.

Case 26-2-00985-29 argues the GMHB’s dismissal of the City’s 2026 Stormwater Plan and its SEPA Determination of Nonsignificance. 

The Board ruled it lacked jurisdiction because the Stormwater Plan was adopted under the City’s NPDES Phase II permit (Clean Water Act compliance), not as a GMA comprehensive plan or development regulation. Munce argues the Stormwater Plan is a foundational Comprehensive Plan document and should have been reviewed as part of the 2025 update, and that the Board improperly allowed the City to split required environmental review into separate processes.

In both cases, Munce asks the Superior Court to reverse the GMHB’s decisions and require full SEPA and GMA‑compliant review of the City’s planning actions.  Because the Superior Court is not confined to the narrow jurisdictional guardrails that limit the GMHB, it may very well reach a different conclusion, reviewing the City’s actions more broadly and considering procedural and SEPA‑related issues the Board could not.

To understand these appeals, it may help to review the Summary of Growth Management Hearings Board Appeals and Decision

Although SGA is no longer centered on appeals, the experience revealed gaps in public access, communication, and civic understanding. These insights now guide SGA’s mission: improving access to planning information, supporting community education, encouraging constructive participation, and helping residents navigate complex planning processes. The archive remains available as a practical example of how planning decisions are made and how community members can engage.

Archive Contents

The website archive includes:

1. Summary of Appeals and Rulings

2. Letters to City Council

3. Public Comments and Commentary

4. Comprehensive Plan Materials

5. GMHB Appeals with summaries and key filings

6. GMHB Process Timeline

7. GMHB Decision and Summary

8. Superior Court Appeals

The Growth Management Act emphasizes informed public participation. This archive supports that principle by preserving how residents engaged, how concerns were raised, and how the review process functions. It also reflects SGA’s core values: transparency, accessibility, and meaningful public involvement.