Kittitas County commissioners have selected attorneys with a Wenatchee firm to provide land-use hearings examiner services that will begin when a contract with the firm is signed.

County staff was directed Monday to form a professional services contract with the firm of Kottkamp and Yedinak of Wenatchee. The contract will go to the county Prosecutor’s Office for review and then come back to commissioners for final approval.

The firm currently provides examiner services to the cities of Kittitas, Wenatchee, Cashmere, Leavenworth, Coulee City and others, and to Chelan, Douglas and Grant counties.

Two other proposals for services were considered.

Commission Chairman Mark McClain said before the hearings examiner system begins, all rules and procedures for the examiner process need to be adopted. He said a public hearing on those procedures has been set for 2 p.m. Aug. 5.

“We do hope to have everything in place and operational as soon as possible,” McClain said.

He said site-specific land-use proposals that have been filed with the county but have not yet come before the Planning Commission have the option to come before the hearings examiner at this point.

Yet once the contract with the firm is signed, those applicants then coming to the county with projects that fall under the jurisdiction of the examiner will have to come before the examiner, McClain said.

The hearings examiner will conduct public hearings on subdivisions or plats, rezones when they are connected to a subdivision project, cluster plats, development agreements, planned unit developments, resorts and wind farms when they are proposed within the east-county wind resource zone. These hearings are now conducted by the county Planning Commission.

The examiner will then make a recommendation to county commissioners who make the final decision on the proposals.

The Planning Commission will continue to make recommendations on changes to the county comprehensive plan and land-use codes and on proposals from the three citizen advisory committees and rezones not connected to a subdivision. It also will review changes in county land-use policies and sub-area plans related to proposed wind farm sites outside the wind resource zone.

County commissioners make the final decision on recommendations coming from the Planning Commission.

The county Board of Adjustment will continue its role in reviewing conditional use permit requests.