11.04.002 Determination of proper procedure type.
A. Determination by Director. The community development director shall determine the proper procedure type for all project permit applications. If there is a question as to the appropriate procedure type, the community development director shall resolve it in favor of the higher procedure type number. The act of classifying an application for procedure type shall be a Type I action; and subject to reconsideration and appeal at the same time and in the same way as the merits of the project permit application in question.
B. Optional Consolidated Permit Review Processing.
1. Unless otherwise required, where the city must approve more than one project permit application for a given development, the applicant may submit the applications for review under a single permit processing review procedure (“consolidated permit review”). The consolidated permit review process can be used with the submission of two or more applications, at any time prior to the holding of a public hearing on any of the associated applications. The permit processing issue date, as required by BMC 11.10.002(C), shall not commence until the last required land use permit has been deemed complete. The applications (1) shall be reviewed and processed under the highest-numbered procedure type that applies to any of the applications; and (2) the determination of completeness (BMC 11.06.003); notice of application (BMC 11.06.004); and notice of final decision (BMC 11.12.007) shall include all project permits being reviewed through the consolidated review process. For example: If the applications included a critical areas permit (Type II), a shoreline permit (Type II) and a conditional use permit (Type III) then the project would be processed as a Type III which would require that all of the permits would be submitted to the hearing examiner for an open record public hearing and the hearing examiner would make the decision on all of the permits.
2. Applications processed in accordance with this subsection which have the same highest-numbered procedure but are assigned different hearing bodies shall be heard collectively by the highest decision-maker(s) applicable to such applications. Decision bodies in order of ranking are as follows: the city council is the highest, followed by the planning commission, hearing examiner, or shoreline board as applicable, and then the community development director or public works director; provided, in the event that the applications would be heard by the planning commission and the planning commission is not otherwise authorized by this code to hear or determine one or more of the project permit applications, the city council shall determine whether or not to act as the hearing body or assign the applications to a hearing examiner. Joint public hearings with other agencies shall be processed according to BMC 11.04.004. (Ord. 1871 § 1, 2002; Ord. 1815 § 1, 2000; Ord. 1691 § 1, 1997; Ord. 1628 § 1, 1996).