The County’s long-awaited Comprehensive Plan draft is out, and it singles out Three Crabs and similar shorelines as high-risk zones for sea-level rise. Official language now supports restrictions on armoring and recommends managed retreat. Residents who want to protect their homes have a narrow window to speak up before the County Commissioners make it policy.
The Comp Plan is finally here, and residents of the Three Crabs area in Dungeness should pay attention. Last year the County’s Marine Resources Committee told the Board of Commissioners to consider “retreat or removal” of roads and homes along Three Crabs Road.
Climate change and sea-level rise were the stated reasons.
The restoration of Meadowbrook Creek, which many residents say made the flooding worse, got a free pass. Commissioners refused to address the letter from the MRC, saying they’d wait for the Comprehensive Plan update.
That draft is now public.
What the Plan Actually Says About Three Crabs
Buried in the Sequim-Dungeness Regional Plan is this:
The areas of Three Crabs Road, Seashore Lane, and portions of Jamestown Road and Jamestown Beach Lane are low-bank shoreline. Sea-level rise and stronger storms put them at risk of erosion, flooding, salt-water intrusion, and septic failure. The plan flags the cumulative damage from bulkheads, questions whether the area can still support septic systems and wells, and calls for public outreach so residents can “solve” the problem together instead of fighting for individual protections.
County-wide policies prefer soft approaches over hard armoring. New development is supposed to be designed so it never needs shoreline stabilization. The new Climate Element goes further: overlays and special zoning to keep new building out of high-risk areas, climate risks written into property considerations, and “long-term visioning” that explicitly includes managed retreat and relocation of the most vulnerable uses.
Partnership with Tribes and NGOs is written in as a feature, not a footnote.
Sea-Level Rise and Managed Retreat Are Now Official Language
Sea-level rise is in the document. Managed retreat is in the document. Directing development—and eventually people—away from these shorelines is the direction of travel.
This is not an order to bulldoze anyone’s house tomorrow. It is the policy foundation that makes the MRC’s earlier advice much easier to carry out later. Property owners who want to protect what they already own will face a steeper hill. Official documents now brand their neighborhoods high-risk. That has consequences for insurance, lending, rebuilding, and long-term value.
Follow the Connections
None of this appeared out of thin air.
In 2021, the Strait Ecosystem Recovery Network (SERN) workshop—whose fiscal agent has been the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe—talked openly about changing comprehensive plans to relocate homeowners out of harm’s way and making sure taxpayer buyouts didn’t pay full price.
The North Olympic Development Council (NODC) was named as a potential partner in property acquisition.
County Commissioner Mark Ozias sits on the NODC board. He is in the unusual position of helping approve taxpayer funding and contracts that flow to an NGO he helps lead. The NODC has been involved in crafting certain elements of the Comprehensive Plans outside of public view. Those documents then come back to the Board of County Commissioners—where Ozias sits—for approval.
The Jamestown Tribe, which is represented on the NODC board and hosted SERN’s 2021 workshop, has also been Ozias’s largest campaign donor.
Ozias also serves as the County’s Tribal Liaison to Jamestown.
Residents can decide for themselves whether this arrangement produces neutral, property-rights-respecting policy or something more one-sided. What is not in dispute is that the same network of players who discussed retreat and below-market acquisition years ago now has the climate language and zoning tools they said they needed inside the County’s primary long-range plan.
Three Crabs and the other low-bank neighborhoods are not being protected as stable residential areas. They are being managed as climate problems. The draft does not seize land, but it does create the conditions under which continued private ownership of these shorelines becomes harder and more expensive while partnership with Tribes is elevated.
The Planning Commission has already forwarded its recommendation. The Board of County Commissioners still has to act. Written comments are still being accepted. The public hearing window is the last clean shot most residents will get before this language becomes official County policy for an entire generation.
If you live on the water in these areas, read the actual documents. The risk language is already in black and white. The only question left is how hard the county commissioners intend to lean on it.
What Can You Do?
This does not just affect Three Crabs. Anyone in Clallam County who owns property along the shoreline, or who cares about how the County regulates development, armoring, septic systems, and long-term property rights on the water, has a stake in this plan.
If you have concerns, put them in writing and send them to the entire Board of County Commissioners through the Clerk of the Board at loni.gores@clallamcountywa.gov.
Copy the Director of the Department of Community Development, Bruce Emery, at Bruce.Emery@clallamcountywa.gov.
A public hearing that will allow public comment is scheduled for Tuesday, September 8, 2026, at 10:30 a.m. at the Clallam County Courthouse. Written comments are accepted up to the hearing and any continuances.
The Planning Commission has already forwarded its recommendation. Once the Board adopts this language, it becomes the County’s official policy roadmap. The window to be heard is open—but it will not stay open long.
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