2019-Ongoing
DP+S has provided planning services to the City of Delta since 2019, including development review, floodplain management, and long-range planning support. This role has primarily been filled by DP+S staff member Raini Ott since May 2021, with occasional support from other team members.
In our time working with the city, we have become intimately familiar with the community; its character, values, strengths, and challenges; the local residents, business owners, design professionals, and developers; and Delta’s future development potential as contemplated in its 2021 Comprehensive Plan, Delta Unleashed. The city has long been recognized as an affordable place to live along the US Highway 50 corridor, and is in a unique position to realize commercial, residential, and recreational development opportunities with renewed investment in its historic downtown, prime riverfront real estate, and an abundance of vacant and underutilized infill properties. This position is beginning to attract developers from elsewhere in the state, as seen in the increasing number and complexity of land use and development applications being submitted to the city.
Just over the past year or two, DP+S has assisted in reviewing numerous applications of varying intensity, from contentious rezonings to straight-forward site developments. These included such projects as pre-application courtesy reviews for Starbucks and Golden Gate Petroleum; conditional use review for Valley Sunset RV Park; boundary adjustment and site plan review for Les Schwab Tires; rezoning reviews for Delta Riverwalk and Grace Community Church; and subdivision sketch plan and preliminary plat reviews for new (or recently revived) developments like Cunningham Orchard Estates, Wendy’s, Delta Riverwalk, Cherry Lane Estates, and Eagles Nest. We have also been heavily involved in reviewing pending updates to the flood hazard maps as well as in reviewing the city’s new unified development code to resolve inconsistencies, increase procedural efficiencies, and modernize the current land use regulations. In addition, we have provided on-call support for inquiries from community members, and we have formed relationships with city staff members and local real estate agents, surveyors, and other professionals that encourage productive communication to find creative solutions for challenging projects and properties.