Much like the City of Centralia, which is currently undergoing a comprehensive plan update due by the end of June, 2025, the City of Chehalis is working on its own comprehensive plan update.
On Monday, Feb. 12, the Chehalis City Council unanimously approved a contract agreement with the Lacey-based engineering consulting firm SCJ Alliance. Chehalis City Councilor John Six was sick and not in attendance for Monday’s vote.
A comprehensive plan is a 20-year vision establishing goals, policies and implementation strategies surrounding a community’s growth. It focuses on land use, population and employment growth.
Elements of Chehalis’ comprehensive plan that will be updated include land use, housing, utilities, capital facilities, transportation, shoreline, essential public facilities, tribal planning, economic development, parks and recreation, and climate change and resiliency.
The Washington state Growth Management Act requires all cities and counties to maintain and update their comprehensive plans periodically, and Chehalis is due for an update by June 30, 2025. The city’s comprehensive plan was last updated in June 2017.
Interim Community Development Director Malissa Paulsen said the city currently does not have the staff required to update the comprehensive plan, and a total of $152,000 has already been set aside in the city’s 2024 budget to pay an outside firm to complete the update.
“We just, unfortunately, don’t have the staffing,” Paulsen said. “And it’s great that we have consultants that are more than willing and have the experience to handle this portion for us.”
According to the council’s agenda report, the contract stipulates total cost is on a not-to-exceed basis of $125,015.92, which the city will get grant reimbursement for.
“Because it is required by the Growth Management Act, the (Washington state) Department of Commerce has entered into an agreement with us to reimburse us $125,000 over the next two years,” Paulsen said.
Originally, Chehalis city staff put out a request for proposals (RFP) last summer to get offers from consulting firms to carry out the update. However, no proposals were received, leading city staff to reach out to SCJ in November, as the city had previously worked with the firm, Paulsen said.
“We’re a little behind the ball due to the RFP issue,” Paulsen said.
SCJ Alliance will carry out the city’s comprehensive plan update in six phases according to the agenda report. The first phase will involve a kickoff meeting with city staff to establish project management.
Then, the next two phases will involve gathering data on existing conditions within Chehalis, studying the city’s demographics, and beginning public outreach and engagement with virtual and hard-copy surveys, along with two public engagement events, with the dates and locations to be determined.
The fourth phase will involve drafting the new comprehensive plan’s policy framework along with implementation plans followed by city staff review and comment for the fifth phase — the final comprehensive plan draft.
SCJ Alliance will also ensure the updated comprehensive plan meets Washington State Environmental Policy Act requirements and also provide recommended or required Chehalis city code updates.
The sixth and final phase of the comprehensive plan update will be the Chehalis City Council adopting the updated plan.
To view the current comprehensive plan, visit the city’s website at https://www.ci.chehalis.wa.us/building/chehalis-comprehensive-plan.
For more information on the comprehensive plan update process, visit https://www.ci.chehalis.wa.us/building/2025-periodic-comprehensive-plan-update.
