“The Island County Commissioners will meet the state-imposed deadline for reducing the size of Freeland and Clinton RAIDs. But they’ll wait until the last minute to do it.The decision Monday limits the growth areas of the two communities and creates a third area to accommodate higher density growth on South Whidbey. But it also leaves an additional four-week window of opportunity for new development projects on the outskirts of the revised boundaries to still become vested under the old rules – a possibility that has drawn ire from environmental groups and some citizens in the communities as well as questions from area planning committees.It also drew a protest from Commissioner Bill Thorn, the only Democrat on the board, who disagreed with his fellow commissioners. He said the new rules should have taken effect immediately instead of waiting for the June 30 deadline given to the county by the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board.But commissioners Mike Shelton and Mac McDowell said the growth board specified June 30 and no sooner for compliance.If they wanted it earlier … they would have said they wanted it earlier, said McDowell.Freeland and Clinton have been designated as Rural Areas of More Intense Development, or RAIDs, in the county’s 20-year comprehensive growth plan. That means they can infill with similar density to what already exists. But their boundaries must be tightly drawn around existing development with no possibility for outward growth until they can provide urban services such as water, sewer and stormwater runoff systems.The commissioners’ decision Monday was ordered by the state’s growth board a year ago when the board found the county’s old development boundaries to be in violation of the 1990 Growth Management Act. The growth board reiterated its order in March citing specific cuts that had to be made and gave the county commissioners until June 30 of this year at the latest to comply.During Monday’s public hearing, the commissioners approved new zoning maps that cut nearly 200 acres from each of the Freeland and Clinton growth planning areas. They also created a new RAID to be known as the Holmes Harbor RAID around the Holmes Harbor Golf and Yacht Club, using the boundary lines of the Harbor Hills Water Company as a guide.The vesting window, which has been left open for more than a year now, has already allowed three projects south of the highway in Freeland to submit applications. Under the new regulations, that same area will be removed from the Freeland RAID. The projects include a self-storage facility, a gas station/convenience store/car wash and, most recently, a mixed use development with both business and residential construction.At a community meeting in Freeland last month, residents and some members of the Freeland Subarea Planning Committee voiced concerns about the county permitting too much development to take place in their area – especially since the county had asked the community to plan its own future.Members said that if new neighboring development was allowed to go in on septic systems it will be that much harder to switch over to a regional sewer system in the future.At Monday’s hearing, Whidbey Environmental Action Network member Steve Erickson pointed out that last July when commissioners Shelton and McDowell left a similar, countywide development window open for about a month, nearly 30 projects became vested in what he called a rush to the counter. Erickson showed a photograph of a sign posted at the county permit offices last summer alerting people to the vesting deadline.They not only allowed the rush to the counter, they encouraged it, he said.But Shelton said he didn’t expect any rush this time. He said that in the long term, vested projects such as those south of the highway in Freeland will likely be permitted under the county’s growth plan. The timing thing is a red herring, he said. The rush to the counter argument doesn’t have a lot of validity as far as I’m concerned.McDowell said that during the formation of the Freeland Subarea Planning Committee more than a year ago no mention was made of a moratorium on development in the area. He said the deadline given by the state growth board has been part of the public record for many months.I don’t think we should surprise the public with some other date, he said.Thorn made one last attempt to make the new rules immediately effective, but his motion died for lack of a second.”