FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Skagit County Planning Commission to Review Draft Agritourism Code Changes
This release has been updated to include corrected links for the Planning Commission agritourism documents.
The Skagit County Planning Commission will host the first work session to review changes to county code regarding agritourism policies on Tuesday, August 19th, at 6:00 p.m. in the Commissioner’s Hearing Room. The proposal was drafted with input from a community advisory group convened by Skagit County Planning and Development Services (PDS) to include public input on the agritourism study. The public is welcome to join the meeting or watch via TV21 or Zoom at the link on the Planning Commission meeting agenda. There will be no public comment offered during this meeting.
The documents below include a rough draft of agritourism code amendments that are still being reviewed by the community advisory group and the Agricultural Advisory Board. A second Planning Commission work session will be held on September 16, 2025, at 6:00 PM to discuss the next draft and a public hearing on the draft changes will be scheduled for later this fall to take additional community feedback.
The Planning Commission documents and draft agritourism proposal can be viewed on our website:
Agritourism Study Background
Skagit County has been studying agritourism in the county and the impacts to our community since 2021 in an effort to evaluate how and if county code regulates agritourism businesses effectively. The Planning Commission recommended an agritourism proposal to the Skagit County Commissioners in December of 2023. During the public outreach process in 2024, the County Commissioners received substantial feedback from local businesses and farms, community members, and county code enforcement staff regarding the new regulations and decided to remand the proposal back to the Planning Commission for further study.
The Commissioner’s resolution to remand the agritourism proposal back to the Planning Commission included specific directions to guide additional evaluation of the proposal, including additional public review and comments from the Agricultural Advisory Board. The Commissioners then requested PDS create a community advisory group (CAG) to ensure a variety of impacted stakeholders are involved in the drafting of agritourism code. The purpose of the CAG was to provide policy recommendations to PDS staff for drafting agritourism code language that responds to the Board of County Commissioners' remand criteria outlined in Resolution #20240132. This effort supported the ongoing work of the Planning Commission in collaboration with the public and the Agricultural Advisory Board to develop a revised agritourism recommendation for the Board of County Commissioners. The goal of the CAG membership was to include representatives from large farms and small-to-mid-size farms across each commissioner district, along with three agritourism operators, and representatives from the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, the Family Festival of Farms, and the Skagit Tourism Bureau.
More information on the CAG’s work can be found on our website.
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