POULSBO — Poulsbo’s Economic Development Committee took on the anticipated issue of allowing more liveaboards at the Port of Poulsbo Marina on Oct. 22, and handed the matter to the city planning department.

The matter will ultimately be decided by the hearing examiner.

“I’m very encouraged that we are talking about a pathway forward, both in terms of liveaboards and in terms of joint city projects,” Port Commissioner Jim Rutledge said. “The port will be delivering an application to the city rapidly.”

The port commission was expecting a slightly different conversation at the meeting, Rutledge said. The meeting began rehashing past discussions about the environment and parking, but quickly turned to the planning department’s land use application process.

“We were prepared to talk about more substantive issues than just the general process,” he said. “We expected to talk more about particular factors that would affect the application.”

It is the first time such a process has been mentioned in relation to the liveaboard increase. The planning department did weigh in on a previous proposal the port prepared, but has not otherwise had its hands on the issue.

The Port of Poulsbo wants to increase the number of berths allowed for liveaboards and, since March, has gone back and forth with the city to forge a path forward.

The port’s marina has 253 permanent slips and is allowed by state regulation to have up to 10 percent of those slips serving liveaboards.

But the port is prevented from reaching that 10 percent, or 25, liveaboards by a 1983 agreement with the city. The agreement prevents the port from adding liveaboards because of downtown parking restrictions. The city would prefer the port have one parking stall for every two boat slips.

The port contends that parking is no longer an issue and it has ample parking spaces on Jensen Way to accommodate additional liveaboards.

The City Council is also concerned about the handling of wastewater generated by liveaboards. Port Executive Director Brad Miller said the port has two pumpout stations and two mobile pumpout carts, exceeding state requirements for marinas.

The port commission also recently passed new marina regulations that require all boats to lock their holding tank valves, denying them the ability to pump overboard. The port will now conduct inspections to ensure that the valves are locked.

The port would like to increase the number of boats with liveaboards by 12. It currently has 12 registered liveaboard residents, six of which actually live at the marina full-time.

The agreement is unique to Poulsbo. No other ports in the region are required to seek such approval by neighboring municipalities.

When the port brought the matter to the City Council, as stated it should in the 1983 agreement, the council asked the port to produce a proposal addressing environmental and parking concerns. It did and the council discussed the proposal at its Sept. 10 meeting, ultimately pushing the matter onto the table of its Economic Development Committee.

On Oct. 22, the committee and the port’s three commissioners — Rutledge, Mark DeSalvo and Stephen Swann — met at that table where the matter was once again handed off to another corner of the city — the planning department.

“It’s not the City Council’s (decision),” Mayor Becky Erickson said at the committee meeting. “We have a hearing examiner process.”

Erickson noted that when the original agreement was written, the council did consider such land use decisions, but the process has since been placed under the purview of the planning department.

In other words, the liveaboard increase will go through the planning department, which will lead to a decision by the city’s hearing examiner.

Keri Weaver of the planning department briefed the port and the committee on the process. Estimating that the port’s application has no issues or needed corrections, it could take at least six months to make its way through the department, public hearings, the hearing examiner and past the state’s Department of Ecology.

“I would hope we could have it done in a vastly faster timeframe than that,” Rutledge said. “If we had known that you guys would be up for having an application, then we would have done that a long time ago.”

“We have not been approached by anyone about this before,” Planning Director Barry Berezowsky responded at the meeting.

“I would disagree with that,” Rutledge said. “This is the third meeting on this.”

Berezowsky refrained from getting into the “nitty gritty” of the port’s proposal, and said the department would be able to better address specific issues once the application process has started.

Councilman David Musgrove encouraged the port to engage the planning department process.

“As long as we sit here, it’s all ‘what ifs,’ ” he said. “You guys are ready to go on this, so let’s see what shakes out of this filter. Start the permit process, get some hard answers and get rid of the ‘what ifs.’ ”