Battle Ground, WA Zoning Ordinance

§ 17.120.010 Purpose.

It is the city's intent that industrial uses be encouraged to expand in accordance with the comprehensive plan and that potential industrial areas be retained as an essential element for a vital economic base for the population of Battle Ground. The intent of this district is to provide suitable areas for a variety of industrial uses including manufacturing, wholesale trade and distribution activities. The industries located in this district can be characterized and "clean" or not involving heavy industrial or manufacturing activities and are generally compatible with surrounding uses. The light industrial districts are intended to contain uses that will not generate excessive noise, pollution, vibration, smoke, dust, gas, fumes, odors, radiation and other nuisance characteristics. Certain commercial activities having an open storage characteristic, or which are most appropriately located as neighbors of industrial uses, are also included as permitted uses in this district. Conditional uses are those which may have some nuisance characteristics that may be mitigated and where such uses may be appropriately sited in Battle Ground. Light industrial districts are only intended to be located in areas with relatively level topography, adequate water and sewerage facilities, and access to arterial streets and highways. Such uses do not typically require water transportation but may require rail transportation.

Employment campus districts are intended to provide primarily office and research and development uses in a park-like setting emphasizing aesthetics and compatibility. Includes opportunities for flex office space and areas that emphasize office uses over manufacturing uses.

The westside employment (WE) district is intended to implement the city's vision and land use master plan by creating an employment zoning designation that allows for a mix of light industrial, office, and limited commercial uses. This district requires a minimum of four jobs per buildable acre and prohibits certain heavy industrial or incompatible land uses.

(Ord. 04-024 § 19 (part), 2004; Ord. 21-39 § 2, 2021)

§ 17.120.020 Uses.

The following uses in each nonresidential zone are permitted (P), conditional (C) or prohibited (X) as indicated in Table 17.120-1.

Table 17.120-1
Use	ML	EC	WE
1. Accessory uses and structures normally incidental to one or more permitted principal uses including those uses indicated as prohibited elsewhere in this table	P	P	P
2. Acid manufacture	X¹	X¹	X¹
3. Art galleries, libraries and museums	P	P	P
4. Asphalt plants	X¹	X¹	X¹
5. Auditoriums and civic centers	P	P	P
6. Automobile, boat, truck, tractor, motorcycle, recreational vehicle, manufactured home and other vehicle service, rental and leasing, new and/or used	P	X¹	C
7. Bulk gasoline storage and fuel oil distributors	C	X¹	X¹
8. Business services operated in conjunction with one or more permitted uses	P	C	P
9. Churches, including cemeteries and customary accessory buildings and uses, subject to BGMC § 17.135.050	C	C	C
10. Clubs, lodges, fraternal institutions and other places of assembly for membership groups	P	X¹	X¹
11. Cold storage plants, frozen food lockers and ice manufacture	P	X¹	P
12. Colleges and universities	X¹	P	P
13. Commercial recreation facilities, enclosed only	P	X¹	C
14. Commercial recreation facilities, unenclosed	P	X¹	C
15. Conical burners and incinerators, including biomedical waste	X¹	X¹	X¹
16. Contractors' establishments	P	X¹	P
17. Cooperative (marijuana)	X	X	X
18. Day care centers, subject to BGMC § 17.135.070	P	P	C
19. Distribution facilities	P	X¹	P
20. Dog day care subject to BGMC § 17.135.075	P	X	X
21. Dry-cleaning plants	P	X¹	P
22. Explosives manufacture and storage	X¹	X¹	X¹
23. Exterminators and pest control businesses	P	X¹	P
24. Fertilizer manufacture	X¹	X¹	X¹
25. Finance, insurance and real estate offices	X¹	P	P
26. Hospitals, health and medical clinics	X¹	P	P
27. Institutionalized residential-living facilities, such as personal-care homes, nursing homes, convalescent homes, group homes, continuing care retirement facilities and similar uses	X¹	X¹	X¹
28. Junkyards, wrecked motor vehicle compounds and used auto or other vehicle parts yards	P	X¹	X¹
29. Kennels	P	X¹	X¹
30. Landfills	X¹	X¹	X
31. Lumber yards, planing and saw mills	P	X¹	X¹
32. Machine shops	P	X¹	P
33. Manufacturing, fabrication, assembling and packaging activities, including accessory storage, for the following products and/or materials: cloth, fiber, fur and hair; electrical and communication equipment; cosmetics, drugs and pharmaceuticals; food, beverage, dairy and tobacco products; and medical, dental, optical precision and surgical instruments and equipment	P	X¹	P
34. Manufacturing, fabrication, assembling, processing, canning, packaging, compounding, storage and treatment activities for the following activities and/or materials: brick, concrete, cement, clay, mortar, plaster and tile; chemicals and floor coverings; extraction or removal of sand, gravel, topsoil, clay, dirt, precious metals, gems or other natural resources; and paper	P	X¹	P
35. Marijuana production, processing, and research facilities	P²	X	X
36. Marijuana retail, subject to BGMC § 17.135.105	X	X	X¹
37. Food pods	X¹	P	P
38. Offices	P	P	P
39. Paper and pulp mills	X¹	X¹	X
40. Parking garages and parking lots	P	X¹	X
41. Personal service establishments, in conjunction with one or more permitted uses	P	P	P
42. Printing, publishing, bookbinding and blueprinting establishments	P	P	P
43. Public and semipublic buildings and uses	P	P	P
44. Radio and television studios	P	P	P
45. Radio, television and cellular phone towers and antennas	P	X¹	P
46. Recreational facilities of a noncommercial nature, including parks, playfields and golf courses	P	P	P
47. Recycling plants, including any processing facilities	P	X¹	X
48. Research and scientific laboratories	P	P	P
49. Residences for a caretaker or night watchman	P	X¹	P
50. Residences of all types, when located on upper floors, in the rear of, or otherwise clearly secondary to commercial buildings	X¹	X¹	X¹
51. Lounges and taverns	X¹	X¹	C
52. Restaurants	X¹	P	C
53. Restaurants, drive-through	X¹	X¹	C
54. Retail trade establishments, enclosed	X¹	X¹	C
55. Retail trade establishments, unenclosed	X¹	X¹	C
56. Retail trade gasoline sales, enclosed or unenclosed	P	X¹	X
57. Rubber manufacture	X¹	X¹	X¹
58. Schools, public, parochial, private, vocational, technical, business and others, nonprofit or operated for profit	P	P	P
59. Services, automotive, including gasoline sales	P	X¹	C
60. Services, business, health, miscellaneous and personal	X¹	P	C
61. Services, lodging	X¹	X¹	X¹
62. Services, lodging, but only when accessory to another principal use	X¹	P	P
63. Single-family detached dwellings and their customary accessory buildings and uses, existing on the effective date of the regulations codified in this chapter, but not including new single-family residences	P	P	P
64. Storage buildings and storage yards, for nonhazardous raw materials and finished products	P	X¹	X¹
65. Temporary uses which may be approved by the planning director	P	P	P
66. Tire retreading and recapping	P	X¹	X¹
67. Transitional housing as defined in BGMC § 17.103.700	P	P	P
68. Transportation, communication and utility facilities, not otherwise specifically permitted	P	X¹	P
69. Utilities and communication facilities, such as telephone exchanges, electric substations and public television stations	P	P	P
70. Warehouses, wholesale and storage establishments, mail order houses and distribution facilities occupying no more than 50,000 square feet of enclosed gross floor area	P	P	P
71. Welding shops	P	X¹	P
72. Wholesale distribution and warehousing facilities, including mail order houses, occupying more than 50,000 square feet	P	X¹	X¹
73. Wineries, breweries and distilleries	P	X¹	P

Notes:
1	Except as permitted as an accessory use.
2	All production/processing shall be located inside a structure, not viewable from any public or private property, and ventilated so that any odor cannot be detected by a person with a normal sense of smell from any abutting property.

(Ord. 04-024 § 19 (part), 2004; Ord. 14-17 § 2 (part), 2014; Ord. 15-04 § 25, 2015; Ord. 16-02 § 3, 2016; Ord. 16-15 § 4, 2016; Ord. 21-39 § 3, 2021; Ord. 22-20 § 5, 2022; Ord. 26-11, 5/18/2026; Ord. 26-13, 6/1/2026)

§ 17.120.030 Dimensional requirements.

The following table establishes dimensional requirements for light industrial, employment campus, and westside employment districts:

Table 17.120-2
Standard	Zone
Standard	EC	ML/WE¹
Minimum lot size	43,560 sq. ft.	20,000 sq. ft.
Minimum lot frontage	30 ft.	30 ft.
Minimum lot width	200 ft.	30 ft.
Minimum front and street side yard building setback	30 ft.	10 ft.
Side and rear yard building setback	30 ft.	None
Minimum distance between principal buildings	30 ft.	None
Maximum building coverage	50%	Maximum determined by compliance with development standards
Maximum height	45 feet	45 feet
Minimum yard setbacks adjacent to residential district	Pursuant to screening and buffering standards contained in Chapter 17.131 BGMC, Table 17.131-1, plus an additional 1/2 foot for each foot the building exceeds 20 feet in height to a maximum setback requirement of 40 feet. Buildings in excess of 20 feet in height may be stepped back.

* Setbacks and buffers shall comply with this table or Table 17.133-1, whichever is more restrictive.

1 Where authorized, commercial buildings shall adhere to the lot sizes and dimensional standards in the RC district as noted in Table 17.118-2.

(Ord. 04-024 § 19 (part), 2004; Ord. 19-22 § 4, 2019; Ord. 21-39 § 4, 2021)

§ 17.120.040 Industrial development standards.

Developments in the ML zoning district shall be designed in accordance with the following standards:

There shall be physically delineated pedestrian connections to the public street system.

Fifteen percent of any street facing building elevations shall be in permeable surfaces (e.g., windows, pedestrian entrances) or permanent architectural features or a combination of both approximately equally distributed across a building facade to break up the monotony of large blank walls or facades.

Shared access points with abutting or adjacent development shall be provided whenever practicable.

(Ord. 04-024 § 19 (part), 2004)

§ 17.120.050 Employment campus development standards.

Developments in the EC zoning district shall be designed in accordance with the following standards:

On-Site Pedestrian Circulation. Pedestrian access routes shall be provided from the public street(s) to all primary building entrances in the form of a continuous separated pathway of at least five feet in width.

Landscaping. In addition to the provisions of Chapter 17.131 BGMC, the following requirements apply to developments in the EC zone:

All setback areas and buffers shall be landscaped and maintained with live vegetation.

Development in the EC zone abutting a residential zone shall be screened by a B3 buffer, or equivalent. Screening may be accomplished using sight-obscuring vegetation, a sight-obscuring fence or wall, a berm, or a combination of approaches. (A chain link fence containing slats does not qualify as a sight-obscuring fence for the purposes of this section.) If a sight-obscuring fence or wall alone is erected as screening within the setback area, features providing visual interest (such as varied building materials, textures, reliefs, architectural details, etc.) shall be incorporated at least on the side facing the residential zone. The property owner shall be responsible for maintaining the vegetation in a healthy state.

Security Fencing. When security fencing is required, it shall be a combination of solid wall, wrought iron, dense hedges or other similar treatment. Long expanses of fences or walls shall be interspersed with trees or hedges to break up the appearance of the wall at least every fifty feet for a distance of at least five feet.

Site Planning and Design.

Primary building entrances shall be physically oriented to the street or to a pedestrian walkway.

If a development is located within two hundred fifty feet of an existing or proposed transit stop the applicant shall work with the transit agency in locating a transit stop and shelter directly adjacent or as close as possible to the main building entrance.

Blank walls facing public streets are discouraged. Features providing visual interest such as windows (genuine, false, or display), artwork, varied building materials or other techniques shall be employed to enhance building facades facing public streets.

(Ord. 04-024 § 19 (part), 2004)

§ 17.120.060 Westside employment development standards.

Developments in the westside employment district shall be designed in accordance with the following standards:

Landscaping. In addition to the provisions of Chapter 17.131 BGMC, the westside employment district shall follow the same standards as those in the EC district:

All setback areas and buffers shall be landscaped and maintained with live vegetation, with a combination of low screen buffers (B1) and medium screen buffers (B2). The planning director may allow specific change to the following standards where it is found that an alternative buffer provides the same level of buffering as the standard.

Development in the WE zone abutting a residential zone shall be screened by a B3 buffer, or equivalent. Screening may be accomplished using sight-obscuring vegetation, a sight-obscuring fence or wall, a berm, or a combination of approaches. (A chain link fence containing slats does not qualify as a sight-obscuring fence for the purposes of this section.) If a sight-obscuring fence or wall alone is erected as screening within the setback area, features providing visual interest (such as varied building materials, textures, reliefs, architectural details, etc.) shall be incorporated at least on the side facing the residential zone. The property owner shall be responsible for maintaining the vegetation in a healthy state.

Site Planning and Design.

Primary building entrances shall be physically oriented to the street or to a pedestrian walkway.

If a development is located within two hundred fifty feet of an existing or proposed transit stop then the applicant shall work with the transit agency in locating a transit stop and shelter directly adjacent or as close as possible to the main building entrance.

Thirty percent of any street-facing building elevations shall be in permeable surfaces (e.g., windows, pedestrian entrances) or permanent architectural features or a combination of both approximately equally distributed across a building facade to break up the monotony of large blank walls or facades.

Twenty percent glazing (windows or permeable surfaces) is required for all buildings fronting SR 502 and NE 92nd Avenue. Buildings with frontages greater than fifty linear feet shall vary the building line and/or create offsetting walls, awnings, arcades, modulated wall textures, climbing landscaping materials and other features that visually reduce the scale of the wall.

Commercial buildings shall follow the design standards in BGMC § 17.118.040.

Maintain four jobs per developed acre. For the purposes of this section only, "developed" means all areas used for buildings, landscaping, vehicle maneuvering and parking areas, outdoor storage, and other areas occupied by the use. For the purposes of this section only, "jobs" means full-time equivalents.

Conditional Uses.

In addition to meeting the other standards in the WE district, conditional uses shall meet the following criteria:

The proposed conditional use shall not be established prior to other permitted uses in the district.

The proposed conditional use shall not comprise more than twenty-five percent of the gross developed land within the district.[1]

[1]

"Gross developed land" is currently developed property throughout the entire WE district. "Developed" means all areas used for buildings, landscaping, stormwater facilities, vehicle maneuvering and parking areas, outdoor storage, and other areas occupied by the use.

The proposed conditional use is compatible with the existing employment uses and will have minimal negative impact on the development and use of surrounding properties, including but not limited to noise, glare, smell, hours of operation, etc.

The proposed conditional use is beneficial to the overall economic diversity and vitality of the city.

The proposed conditional use does not pose a threat to public health or safety.

The proposed conditional use does not violate any goals or objectives in the comprehensive plan.

Other items deemed applicable by the community development director or hearing examiner.

(Ord. 21-39 § 5, 2021)