Oak Harbor adds 80 acres, annexation faces legal challenge

Oak Harbor’s latest annexation shifts 80 acres, and up to 257 future homes, under city control, with taxes, zoning and service rules now hanging over a legal fight that could go beyond the land itself.

The City Council approved the annexation as part of the 2025 Comprehensive Plan update, using a rare interlocal agreement with Island County under RCW 35A.14.296. City officials say the parcels were already inside Oak Harbor’s Urban Growth Area, so the UGA boundary did not change, but the land will now fall under city property taxes and city land-use rules.

The proposed South Annexation Area covers three sections south of the city, near Swantown Road, Waterloo Road and State Route 20, and involves fewer than 20 property owners or groups. The area is slated for R-2 zoning, which allows single-family homes, duplexes and fourplexes. City planners said the annexation would not force immediate utility hookups, but new development, or major renovation that raises a property’s value by more than 50%, would trigger water or sewer connection requirements.

That is the practical stake for residents watching the fight: who pays for future growth, who gets city services, and who decides when fringe land becomes urban. Oak Harbor says the annexation helps it meet a countywide obligation to absorb thousands of new residents and more than 5,000 new homes by 2045. Local reporting has said the city’s housing allocation was cut from 5,533 additional units to 3,992, with 1,797 units still assigned to the unincorporated UGA even after the reduction.

Whidbey Environmental Action Network says the city is moving too fast. Executive Director Marnie Jackson argued that Oak Harbor still has unresolved unincorporated pockets, often called donut holes, that are already developed and functioning like city neighborhoods because they rely on wells and septic systems. In WEAN’s view, state growth-management law requires the city to address those enclaves before annexing greener land at the edge. Jackson said the group could challenge the annexation before the Boundary Line Review Board and later petition the Growth Management Review Board once the comprehensive plan update is finished.

County and city planners have acknowledged the deeper conflict: whether Oak Harbor should plan to extend infrastructure into those enclaves and other UGAs, or keep asking developers to pay for expansion. One county planning official called the lower population projection an “imperfect solution” to that dispute. Island County’s 2045 comprehensive plan materials say the update is meant to guide growth over a 20-year period and must be revised every 10 years.

Island County also extended an emergency moratorium on certain Mixed-Use Rural Areas of More Intensive Development through October 14, 2026, adding another layer to the land-use standoff. For Oak Harbor, the annexation is now a test case for who controls future growth: the city, the county, or the state boards that may hear the challenge next.