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NEWPORT — The Newport City Council received an update on the city’s Comprehensive Plan at their meeting Tuesday, Feb. 17.
Updated once every 10 years, Comprehensive Plans are long-range planning documents for city growth, priorities and other areas that are required by Washington state law. A team of consultants from Kimley-Horn have been working to update Newport’s Comprehensive Plan since June 2025, a process that lead consultant Rachel Granrath said took two years.
The council must adopt a Comprehensive Plan by June 2027. Prior to that, Kimley-Horn will present a final draft of the Comprehensive Plan to them.
“We haven’t been doing this for even a year yet,” Granrath said. “But we’re pretty far along, which has been great.”
For each Comprehensive Plan, the state requires cities to look at land use, housing, capital facilities, utilities and transportation, as well as climate change and resiliency. In addition to these elements, Newport is opting to look into economic development and parks, recreation and open space.
“We’re tackling economic development as a key component, as well as parks and recreation,” Granrath said. She and her team began engagement efforts within Newport last fall, interviewing stakeholders, conducting a survey and holding workshops with the city Planning Commission. Their efforts have also involved participating in local events, sending out mailers to residents and working with Newport School District students to gather feedback and identify residents’ goals and values.
These goals and values included community connection and collaboration; downtown revitalization; health, inclusion and beautification; and the development of local opportunities like the cottage industry and housing in the South Bench.
“These are drafts, so feel free to give com- ments,” Granrath said.
“Nothing is set in stone yet.”
Also prepared for the Comprehensive Plan are existing and projected conditions of local population and demographics, as well as maps of future land use, current zoning, net developable land capacity and parks and recreation/service areas.
Land capacity informs zoning and districts and has ties to housing, which is based on area median income.
In Newport, residents aged 20–24 and 65–74 comprise over one-fifth of the population.
“You’ve got a great group of younger people here,” Granrath said.
“And that’s unique to Newport.”
Parts of southern and northeastern Newport were designated for Master Planned Development, or large parcels of land the city can develop for different uses, Granrath said. While her team had to remove some land planned for urban growth due to complications with the railroad, they added land for commercial or residential use per resident feedback.
Newport also has a lot of areas available for the development of accessory dwelling units or duplexes, Granrath said. “We’re trying to provide flexibility to allow for some innovation,” Granrath said. “But also showing that we’re planning for the future in these areas with the capacity that we have.”
However, her team noted a gap in parks, recreation and services in southern Newport.
Previously, the city expressed a need for parks throughout the city, just walking distances away from residents. Granrath advised the council to meet that need by establishing parks and other services, such as roads, alongside developments in that part of the city.
“That’s a key piece of that, is consistency with your Comprehensive Plan and your local needs,” Granrath said.
She will return to give the council another update on the Comprehensive Plan later this year.
Her team is still working on policy development, outreach and feedback, land capacity analysis and a housing needs assessment, as well as development regulations and a critical areas ordinance, which are environmental protections required by the state. Besides those, city administrator Abby Gribi is working with Granrath and her team on a climate resilience sub element draft.
Council member Nathan Weathers asked Granrath if the Comprehensive Plan was also meant to provide the state with policymaking information confirming expectations for cities at the state budget level.
“It is all those things you just said,” Granrath said. “It also helps you be eligible for grant funding and be very competitive for grant funding.”
The council has yet to reach a point of major decision-making regarding the Comprehensive Plan. Still, Granrath recommended the council engage with related policy and be hands-on with implementing the Comprehensive Plan further into the process.
In the meantime, the council and Planning Commission may hold a joint workshop on the Comprehensive Plan.
“Goals and policies and implementation is where the council really needs to look over what can we really look at and likely achieve in 10 years,” Gribi said.
In other business, the council unanimously added the special event vendor fee to the current fee schedule, setting the fee at $10 per day.
Instead of purchasing a state business license and city endorsement for upwards of $70 total, special event vendors may instead purchase a special event vendor license from the city, as previously reported by The Miner.
Earlier, the council unanimously surplused a fire engine valued at $5,000–$7,000 for sale to Fire District 5, one of whose fire engines recently failed.
