Town council approves comprehensive plan despite objections

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, July 21, 2026

Despite calls from some residents to delay a vote, the Coupeville Town Council approved its periodic Comprehensive Plan update July 14, affirming the town’s interpretation of a long-disputed development agreement.

The plan, which will guide the town’s growth over the next two decades, addresses issues including affordable housing, historic preservation, climate resilience and the needs of an aging population.

The council unanimously approved the comprehensive plan and also adopted amendments to the zoning map and development regulations. Councilmember Evan Henrich cast the lone dissenting vote on the zoning amendment, saying higher-density zoning better supports the workforce housing Coupeville needs.

Illness kept Councilmember Kristo Allred from attending the meeting.

It took two years for the town to devise its periodic update, originally due at the end of 2025. Since November, town staff and officials have worked to incorporate feedback on the comprehensive plan provided by the state Department of Commerce.

Many, however, asked that the vote approving it be deferred.

At the center of the dispute is a 2004 memorandum of agreement governing development of 33 acres north of Highway 20 between Main Street and Broadway Street. Contrary to the planning commission’s recommendation, the council approved the town’s interpretation that 45 dwelling units remain available under the agreement. Many property owners contend only 39 units remain.

The agreement between the town and Cecil and Cheryl K. Stuurmans originally allowed up to 108 homes on the property. Town officials later explored amending it to allow additional housing but abandoned the effort after determining they needed unanimous consent from all property owners.

In 2022, the town amended the agreement without unanimous consent, later concluding that doing so violated the memorandum. Property owners argue that action, along with other factors, reduced the remaining number of allowable homes to 39. The disagreement ultimately led to the formation of United to Save Our Beautiful Town, a grassroots organization focused on government transparency and accountability.

During a planning commission meeting on July 7, community planning director Josh Pitts described the town’s accounting as including a “clerical error” rather than a “substantive” one. Commissioners felt uncomfortable approving the comprehensive plan either way.

While Pitts acknowledged the planning commission’s concerns at the July 14 meeting, he said that staff concluded that the town’s calculation represents its “legal interpretation of the memorandum.” He and Mayor Molly Hughes also felt that removing the table would be “inappropriate” in the interest of transparency.

“While staff recognizes that this interpretation is not shared by all (memorandum) property owners, the dwelling unit allocation table is informational in nature and is not itself a regulatory provision of the comprehensive plan,” he said.

The comprehensive plan now includes language acknowledging that property owners dispute the town’s interpretation.

Several meeting attendees spoke during the public hearing about the town’s calculation on the comprehensive plan’s approval, including former Councilmember Pat Powell and J. Richard Aramburu, an attorney representing property owners who oppose the town’s calculation.

Numerous Front Street building owners also asked that the council defer approval of the comprehensive plan.

In an email from the morning of July 14, building owners encouraged town staff and officials to “foster a vibrant, walkable streetscape” by providing “flexibility for diverse lodging and housing types” in the rear of ground-floor over-water building spaces. That is, so long as “street-facing frontage is retained for approved commercial uses.”

Town council explored the possibility of allowing short-term rentals in street-level spaces exclusively in over-water buildings last year, but nothing came of it.