Clark County Wa Type 1 Site Plan Review

Frequently Asked Questions

The content on this page is intended for advisory purposes and while all endeavour has been made to present current summary facts, the reader should contact the advisable entity for details and upward-to-date information. In no circumstance should you utilise the data on this page hither as a substitute for the advisable advice.

The Clark County Title 40 Code contains much of the information in this fact sheet.

Small acreage landowners often find it difficult to navigate the maze of Clark County and land codes pertaining to country utilise. Many elements of these codes are required by land and/or federal laws. These codes attempt to residual your rights with your neighbour's rights, while promoting a clean and healthy environment that maintains livable communities for all Clark Canton residents. County ordinance states that county codes "safeguard public health, rubber, and general welfare of the citizens of Clark County."

I'd like to build a befouled. Practice I demand a permit?
What projects need a building let?
I desire to build a tool shed, only a neighbor told me I need a permit to build it. Is that true?
What are the setback requirements?
Do I need a permit to clear vegetation from my property? What about adjacent to my creek?
Tin can I cut downward a tree or apply a tree for firewood on my property?
Can you explain the notice I received from the Weed Lath?
Can I outlet rainwater from the roof of my house, befouled, or outbuilding directly to the ditch along the county road by my belongings?
Can I deepen or piece of work in an existing ditch on individual holding that may have silted in over the years?
I've heard that farmers don't demand to become any permits. Is that true?
What kind of activities will trigger the need for a grading permit?
If I want to build a pond on my property, what practise I need to know before I build one? What if I but like the sound of running water, can I build a water feature?
Can I raise trout? How virtually other fish species?
Can I describe water from the small stream that flows on my property?
If I cannot use surface waters, what about using my well water?
Can I collect rainwater to utilize on my property?
What is an easement and how does information technology affect the utilise of my property?
What full general communication would be proficient when looking at doing projects on my acreage?
Permits & Permitting Agencies – A Brusque Guide

I'd like to build a befouled. Do I demand a permit?

No let is necessary if the structure y'all plan to build is 100% for agricultural use. This means that you cannot use the building to park your RV, but you can use information technology to park a tractor and store agricultural implements. Of course, housing livestock and/or related supplies (feed, hay, etc.) is fine, as well. However, this building could not be used for processing or packaging agricultural products (no cooking up your favorite salsa recipe) or be open to the public (e.thou., farm produce stand). Additionally, no i may alive in the structure. Fifty-fifty when a allow is non required, you lot will still need to follow the current Washington Building Code and see setback requirements. Boosted information on ag buildings tin been seen at Clark County Agricultural Construction Allow Exemption.

If you plan to plumb water, heat or wire the place for electricity, y'all will all the same need a permit even if yous do the piece of work yourself.

What Projects need a building permit?

Other than the agronomical edifice above, most structure projects require permits. Whatever piece of work on a building's structural components, plumbing, and mechanical work requires a allow regardless of the dollar value of the piece of work. This includes reroofing, re-siding, retaining walls over iv feet loftier, fences over six feet high, or building a deck.
For information on construction work, contact the Permit Centre at 1300 Franklin Street, Vancouver, WA or call 564-397-2375.
Electrical work can be done either past an electric contractor or the homeowner. Permits must first be acquired from the Department of Labor and Industries 360-896-2300, located at 312 SE Stonemill Drive Suite 120, Vancouver, 98684-3508. Completed electric work must be inspected past an L&I licensed inspector. To make up one's mind the fee for the permit, visit the Washington Dept of Labor and Industries fee folio.

I want to build a tool shed, but someone told me I need a allow to build information technology. Is that truthful?

Codes require a let for garden sheds over 200 twenty square feet in area or xviii feet or more in tiptop. Even when your project does not require a permit, these buildings must conform to the electric current canton code, run into setback requirements, exist separated by viii feet from whatsoever other building on the property, and come across environmental requirements.

The permit center provides some sample plans for commonly built individual buildings. You can likewise talk to a plans examiner at the permit centre who volition answer your specific questions. In some cases, y'all may need to hire a professional person engineer to ensure that your edifice project complies with the current standards.

For data on requirements, contact the Permit Center (1300 Franklin Street, Vancouver, WA) at 564-397-2375. You will need to get out a message for a permit technician who will return your call by the next business concern day.

What are the setback requirements?

Setback requirements vary by how your property is zoned and what type of structure y'all are building. Based on information found on the Clark County Community Development Building FAQ'south page or the previous table summarizes setback requirements for nigh rural zoning classifications.
You tin can also observe data about setback requirements on your land using Clark Canton Maps Online.

Do I demand a permit to clear vegetation from my property? What about next to my creek?

In most cases, mowing, cutting, and legal herbicides can be used to maintain your holding and proceed brush and other vegetation in bank check.

If yous plan to use heavy equipment to articulate castor or if you program to clear brush within 200 feet of your creek or wetland, a Habitat Permit review may be required, except when immigration nuisance vegetation like blackberry, Scotch Broom, and Tansy Ragwort. Clearing these are exempt from the Habitat Let review if you employ hand tools and practise not disturb the soil or other vegetation. Disturbing soils most streams can lead to erosion that harms aquatic life in the stream.

Before you lot start clearing in these areas, call Clark Canton Environmental Services at 564-397-6140 for the appropriate methods to use. They can as well straight you to whatever other agencies that yous may need to work with.

A Habitat Allow review is required for proposed clearing in riparian or priority habitat areas. Begin by calling Clark County Environmental Services at 564-397-5855.

On more projects involving multiple permits and agencies, completing a joint aquatic resource permit application (JARPA) can streamline the permitting process since several permitting agencies accept this single awarding form. The time frame for permits varies greatly depending on the work and the sensitivity of the area, merely can take up to seven weeks for the process.

Can I cut down a tree or utilize a tree for firewood on my property?

Interested in providing habitat? Leave that snag! As long as the snag does not present a danger to buildings or people, they supply of import nesting sites for birds. The decaying wood likewise returns organic matter to your woodland soil.

Removing trees for firewood for your ain personal apply does not unremarkably require a permit. You can likewise remove a hazard tree without a allow if it is inside one and a half tree lengths from an existing building. You volition need to obtain a permit from Clark County Environmental Services the when:

Removing over v,000 board feet (equivalent to a total load on a logging truck)
Removing timber commercially
Selling firewood.

Any activity in streams, wetlands, rivers, and on unstable slopes as well requires a Habitat Permit from Clark County Environmental Services at 564-397-5855. Additional information Wood Practice Reviews.

A Forest Practices Permit may be required from Section of Natural Resources (564-577-2375).

Tin y'all explain the notice I received from Vegetation Management

The discover near probable tells you that your property harbors weeds considered noxious The notice includes color photos of the noxious weed(south) and instructions by the state. State police declares that landowners are responsible for controlling the spread of baneful weeds.

This discover includes color photos of the noxious weed(southward) and instructions on what to do next. You will need to contact Vegetation Management and tell them what you intend to practise to control the weed(s). Communication and recommendations for decision-making weeds are available from Vegetation Management.

Vegetation Management staff follow-upwardly inside twelve days to see that you have taken steps to control the weed. If y'all have not taken measures to command the noxious weed, you will receive a violation notice by certified post. You take ten days from receipt of the violation notice to cease seed propagation. Vegetation Management will work with landowners, to develop a state management program to obtain meaningful control for the noxious weeds on your property. For those few who decline to work to control their noxious weeds, failure to heed the violation discover tin result in an infraction and Vegetation Direction obtaining a warrant to enter your property and control the weeds at the landowner's expense or issuance of a notice of civil infraction with fines ranging from $500 to $one,000 per weed species, per solar day.

A list of noxious weeds, mowers and certified sprayers can be obtained through Vegetation Management and is bachelor on their website. Controlling weeds is important since weeds often compete with crops, poison people and livestock, and create fire hazards. Weeds too threaten wetlands, rivers, and lakes and other native institute communities. For information, contact Clark County Vegetation Management at 564-397-6140.

Can I outlet rainwater from the roof of my house, barn, or outbuilding directly to the ditch along the county route past my property?

You tin can divert this runoff to the ditch along the county road as long as it is just make clean h2o. Yet, if the rainwater becomes contaminated or dingy, you cannot route it to the ditch. Contagion may come up from animal manure, vehicle oils, chemicals (herbicides, pesticides), or other sources. Once these contaminants enter a ditch, they flow downhill until they enter into a creek. Contaminants can affect not simply the health of aquatic life, but also that of humans when they recreate.

In general, infiltrating the rainwater on site presents the best solution. This recharges ground water, reduces erosion, and helps maintain a healthy watershed. For structures such as a house, one culling would be a pelting garden, a shallow depression planted with native flowers, shrubs or grasses that collects rainwater from gutters and allows it to soak back into the ground. Larger structures, such equally barns, would need more than one pelting garden. For more data on rain gardens visit WSU Extension Rain Gardens. raingarden.wsu.edu.

Constructing drywells or diverting rainwater to other vegetated areas offers other possible solutions.

Can I deepen or work in an existing ditch on private holding that may have silted in over the years?

Every property is different and needs to be evaluated separately. If yous want to deepen a ditch, the best communication is to contact Clark County's Permit Center at 564-397-4078. Information technology is necessary to be careful when earthworks to avoid stirring up sediments or contaminants that might be transported to streams or other waterbodies since these can damage aquatic life and sometimes degrade the stream habitat as well.

Many older ditches were dug years agone to drain wetlands. Piece of work in these ditches may require a Wetland or Habitat permit from Clark County. Some projects might crave a Hydraulic Project Approval (HPA) permit from Washington Country Section of Fish and Wild animals (360-902-2534), especially if the ditch flows into a fish bearing stream. To avert disturbance (sediment and other contamination) to nearby creeks, any grading should be done during the drier summer months.

You tin visit the Allow Center at 1300 W. Franklin in Vancouver to speak with someone in person almost your project. Doing this ensures that you are doing everything necessary before beginning any work.

I've heard that farmers don't demand to get any permits. Is that true?

No, just some agricultural activities are exempt from allow requirements. Generally, activities considered "normal farming practices" are exempt. For example, farmers can by and large maintain and repair existing agricultural facilities such as agronomical buildings, animal waste matter direction structures, roads (they may not change canal sizes or the embankment), and ponds (they may non enlarge a pond).

Agronomical operations may clear vegetation, stumps and undergrowth 4 without a allow unless clearing is within 200 feet of a stream or wetland. This may require a habitat or wetland permit. These operations may also use soil amendments such as fertilizer, compost and animal waste matter. Yet, these should not be applied where they are likely to be done into streams or other waterbodies due to the harmful furnishings this might have on the stream or its aquatic life.

When in doubt, an advertizing hoc committee from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (360-883-1987), the Clark Conservation District, and WSU Extension make recommendations to Clark County on what constitutes normal farming practices.

Farming activities that require importation or excavation of fill up cloth (exclusive of soil amendments) may not be exempt.
This might include amalgam an agricultural building pad, new drainage ditches, ponds, roads, or bridges.

What kind of activities will trigger the need for a grading permit?

The total amount of material imported and/or excavated triggers grading permits, non the specific activity. On urban lots over i acre and rural lots under five acres moving 100 cubic yards or more of fabric, requires a grading allow. On rural lots over five acres, moving over 200 cubic yards requires a grading permit. In critical areas the threshold for allow requirements is 50 cubic yards (Clark County Code fourteen.07) Since this is non a large corporeality of fabric, near grading activities will need permits. (Consider that a xx' x 20' x three one/three' deep hole produces fifty cubic yards.)

What is a "yard" or "cubic yard" of cloth? Summate the length times the width times the depth of the expanse (measured in feet) to be excavated or moved, and divide the result (cubic feet) by 27. This provides the number of cubic yards of material. For example, a mound 30 feet long, 12 anxiety wide and 2 feet tall, equals 26.7 cubic yards.

Grader Beware! Grading and inspection fees double if you lot grade without a permit, even if you were unaware you lot needed a grading permit. For information, contact, Clark County Public Works, 564-397-6118

If I want to build a pond on my property, what do I need to know before I build ane? What if I just like the sound of running water, can I build a water feature?

This is a circuitous question, so we accept written a carve up factsheet to help you out. Start past reading Constructing Ponds and Water Features: What Does it Take? (PDF) so you know what agencies you might need to talk to.

Can I enhance trout? How about other fish species?

Stocking a pond with fish requires a permit from the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) to assure that stocked fish practice not escape into streams and other water bodies. Stocked fish that escape tin can replace native fish species past competing for habitat and nutrient, introducing diseases, and predation.

Fish suitable for Washington include rainbow trout, largemouth bass, bluegill, sunfish, and channel catfish. Yous tin can contact the WDFW for a list of certified disease-free fish growers.

Getting the permit. Along with a $24 fee and $lxx processing fee, submit the allow awarding to the SW Regional WDFW part at 2108 Thousand Boulevard in Vancouver (360) 906-8972). WDFW will accommodate for a fish biologist to inspect your site's water quality, source, inlet and outlet structures, and other parameters, in addition to your proposed source of fish. Stocking permits may take 30 days to process. If other permits are required, information technology could take longer.

Tin can I describe water from the small stream that flows on my property?

The curt respond is no. Stream water belongs to the public and altering flows requires a "water right." A water right grants individuals or groups the use of a certain corporeality of h2o, but non ownership. Legally, a water correct "is a legal authorisation to use a predefined quantity of public water for a designated, beneficial purpose."

Water rights law involves a very complex set of rules throughout the 5
western U.S. For more than information, contact the Washington State
Department of Ecology, Southwest Region 360-407-6300 or view their web site on h2o rights.

If I cannot use surface waters, what about using my well water?

Landowners do non demand a water right to use well water if consumption is less than 5000 gallons per mean solar day when the water is used for unmarried or grouping domestic purposes, stock watering, industrial purposes, or lawns and non-commercial gardens of a one-half acre or less. Amounts over 5,000 gallons crave a h2o right.

Because that an average household uses 300 gallons of h2o per day, a v,000 gallon limit does non touch on most landowners.

This information can exist found on the Department of Ecology'south web site.

Can I collect rainwater to use on my holding?

On October 12, 2009, the Department of Ecology issued an Interpretive Policy Statement clarifying that a h2o right is not required for rooftop rainwater harvesting. Once you have collected the rainwater in that location are no limitations on its use.

The rainwater storage organization may also exist used for rainwater drove to store groundwater withdrawn under the groundwater let exemption for future beneficial employ (i.eastward. an owner may pump groundwater in the winter under the permit exemption, store it, and then use it in the jump and summer). According to the new rainwater interpretive policy, an "onsite" rooftop/guzzler system ways the storage and use of the rainwater occurs on the same parcel equally the roof from which the water was captured.

For more information on rainwater collection visit the Department of Ecology'south website.

What is an easement and how does it bear on the utilize of my property?

An easement allows some other person or entity to use a part of your property for a specified purpose, even though you lot own the land. Your holding title or deed should state any easements recorded on your belongings. If yous cannot find this, your title visitor will usually provide a copy of the paperwork to you at fiddling or no charge. The Clark Canton Section of Assessment and GIS (360-397-2391) tin also provide a copy for a fee or you can visit Clark County Maps Online. View the Instructions for using Maps Online.

Non all easements are created equal. The canton route easements allow the county to build or aggrandize a road without obtaining your approving. Electric line easements usually allow utility company access and restrict the elevation of vegetation growing under the lines. Information technology is not uncommon for "landlocked" properties to have easements on a property to allow access to a nearby road. In this latter case, you would non be able to build or otherwise limit vehicle access to the landlocked property.

Buying property? Make sure that you understand and are comfortable with any restrictions or easements placed on the use of your holding before yous sign. The bottom line is, if an easement shows on the title search, ask your realtor and be sure you understand what it means before you sign.

What general advice would be skillful when looking at doing projects on my acreage?

Always ask questions. Inquire until you empathize exactly what permits are required, from which agency, and in what sequence before starting on a projection. While permits can become complicated and restrictive at times, retrieve that codes are in place to protect yous, your property, your neighbors and their property, and the environs.

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Source: https://extension.wsu.edu/clark/naturalresources/smallacreageprogram/what-can-you-do-on-your-land/