Sultan 2044 Draft FLUM

We're considering updates to Sultan's Future Land Use Map (FLUM) as part of the 2024 Comprehensive Plan Update to ensure that the City can support housing and businesses in ways that align with the City's vision for 2044. The FLUM will be a crucial planning tool for planning staff and decision-makers when considering land use decisions and priority areas for investment. The FLUM, however, is not legally binding nor regulatory, but instead strives to communicate a long-range community vision through generalized land use categories as well as community assets, risks, and opportunities. Ultimately, the FLUM is an advisory map and guides future zoning changes and development regulations.

What does updating the FLUM mean, and how does that guide future zoning regulations?

The difference between a future land use designation in a Comprehensive Plan and a zoning designation primarily lies in their scope, purpose, and specificity.

• Future Land Use Designation in a City Comprehensive Plan
  A future land use designation broadly serves long-term goals and policies, guiding the overall vision for how and where the city will grow and develop over time, typically looking 20 to 30 years into the future. These designations are more general and provide a guideline for the desired future development of an area. They are not legally binding in the same way as zoning designations but serve as a policy guide for making land-use decisions. The FLUM covers a wide range of land use categories such as residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural, recreational, and open spaces, and it indicates the general distribution and intensity of these uses.
   
• Zoning Designation
  Zoning designations are more specific and detailed, serving as the legal tool for implementing the vision outlined in the comprehensive plan. They regulate the current use of land in specific areas of the city, dictating what can be built, where it can be built, and how it can be used, and are created through a legislative process. Zoning is legally binding and includes specific regulations that property owners must follow, including building heights, densities, setbacks, lot sizes, and types of activities allowed. While zoning laws are more rigid than the land use designations in a comprehensive plan, they can be changed or amended through processes such as variances, conditional use permits, or rezoning to adapt to new developments or changing needs within the community.

  In summary, future land use designations provide a broad, long-term vision for the growth and development of a city, while zoning designations are the legal tools that regulate the use of land as specific means to achieve that vision.

Reference the map below to help you to respond to the prompts in the PDF on the next page. The map includes layers for community assets, community risks, and proposed future land use designations. Additional reference layers include existing zoning and parcel classifications for vacant, partially-used, or redevelopable as defined in the 2021 Snohomish County Buildable Lands Report. For a quick how-to, see the PDF below.