USA: Ecology Seeks Comments on Gold Bar Shoreline Program

The Washington Department of Ecology is seeking public comment on Gold Bar’s proposed update to its shoreline master program.

The draft shoreline program update will guide construction and development along the city’s 4.8 miles of shorelines along May Creek and the Wallace and Skykomish rivers. It combines local plans for future development and preservation with new development ordinances and related permitting requirements.

Gold Bar’s locally-tailored shoreline master program is designed to help minimize environmental damage to shoreline areas by managing existing and future residential development, and intact river and creek buffers through vegetation conservation standards and the city’s critical areas regulations.

Under Washington’s 1972 voter-approved Shoreline Management Act, Ecology must review and approve Gold Bar’s proposed shoreline program before it takes effect. Cities and counties statewide are in the process of – or soon will be – updating or developing their master programs.

Ecology will accept public comment on Gold Bar’s proposed shoreline program until Oct. 24, 2013 at 5 p.m.

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Press Release, September 24, 2013