Islanders will have an opportunity to help shape Vashon’s future next week, when King County officials present a range of ideas at a meeting regarding the island’s new Community Service Area Plan, currently being developed.

The ideas to be discussed — some practical, some aspirational — range from increasing affordable housing to mitigating the effects of climate change. They all stem from the work of a group of 15 islanders, who have been meeting monthly since March to revise Vashon’s out-of-date Town and Community Plans. King County’s Bradley Clark, with the Department of Permitting and Environmental Review, has been working with the group to create the new plan, which is expected to be finalized next year and help chart the course for Vashon for the next 20 years.

At the meeting, set for Oct. 20, there will be three main topics presented in breakout sessions, including increasing affordable housing and the Town Loop Trail, which connects Vashon Town and Center. A third item will be selected soon, and beyond those topics, Clark said, officials will discuss about 10 other items more briefly, ranging from historical preservation to increased shoreline access. He encouraged islanders to attend and share their thoughts. Plans help individuals and groups organize and prioritize, he added, and for King County, the plan being created is a document that will be used to guide public investment and land use as well as support trails and docks and other infrastructure.

If somebody on the island is thinking about the future, he added, whether it is their own future or that of their kids or grandkids, the kinds of issues the plan addresses are important, including what commercial buildings get used for and how many people live next door.

“Those decisions are made through this plan,” Clark said. “It is a guide for the future to help steer where the community wants to go. Having input into that guide is what this meeting is about.”

The goal of the meeting is to focus on key issues facing Vashon, Clark said, and affordable housing for people who work on the island has arisen as one of the largest.

Chris Szala, who heads Vashon HouseHold, has been part of the plan process and put Vashon’s housing situation in stark terms.

“If we do not do something, all of our help will be coming from the off-island,” he said. “We are on the verge of becoming a Hamptons-style community.”

Among the changes proposed for more affordable housing is a change in zoning in and around the “rural town” of Vashon, specifically within the boundaries of the sewer district.

Currently, much of the island’s residential zoning only allows for single family, detached homes. At next week’s meeting, Clark said, islanders will have a chance to weigh in on some possibilities to change that and potentially help create more housing for people who work on the island. Among the opportunities will be a chance to comment on areas slightly north of town that could be re-zoned to allow multiple units to be built on them.

Additionally, Emma Amiad, who is also part of this planning process, said another possibility would be to “upzone” the town area, thereby allowing home owners within that boundary to create apartments in their homes or build additional units, such as a duplex or triplex on another portion of the property.

She stressed that there are many impediments to building on Vashon — the cost involved, limited water and wetland restrictions among them, but changing the zoning in the town area would remove at least one challenge.

“Our goal would be that zoning won’t be an obstacle,” she said. “There may be other obstacles, but we have no control over them.”

At King County, Clark stressed that public comment is important on this stage.

“We are still at the point where public input is going to have a lot of influence over the final product,” he said.

Regarding Vashon’s open spaces, those who attend will have a chance to weigh in on the Town Loop Trail, a joint project of the Vashon Maury Island Land Trust and King County’s Department of Natural Resources and Parks, only a small portion of which has been completed.

“The concept is a to create a pathway between town and Center that is not on the highway for pedestrians, horse riders and bikers,” said Tom Dean, who heads the Land Trust.

The hope, he added, is that eventually the trail would help kids get to school safely, provide alternate transportation routes for people who work at Pacific Research and in the Sheffield Building and be an alternate route they could use to head to Island Center Forest for recreation or back into town.

“The trail facilitates more comfortable movement back and forth between our two centers for work and commerce, not to mention the arts center and schools,” he said.

Dean noted that some of the proposed trail goes through private property, and easements from those landowners are necessary. Additionally, he said, inclusion in the Community Service Area Plan will be important in the long-term, particularly for funding.

“We need a lot of money to build this, and we need the support of the community. We need to know that people are nodding their heads,” he said. “That is critical.”

Among the topics to be discussed in less detail is climate change — a subject typically discussed at the regional level or higher; however, the material presented that night will include facts about effects of climate change — and steps to deal with them — at the local level. Vashon has about half of King County’s shoreline, and experts are considering the ramifications of a 3-foot sea level rise in the next 50 years. Currently, King County officials have data on parcels of land and streams on Vashon that will likely be affected, Clark added. That information will be shared, along with what islanders might do to mitigate some of the related changes and challenges.

Additional topics likely to be covered briefly at the meeting include those related to historical preservation, increased public access to beaches and septic system-related pollution issues.

Though many topics will be discussed, they will only make up a portion of the plan, which will include more than 80 policies when it is complete.

“We will be drawing on the key ones, the ones that would have the greatest impact on the island population,” Clark said.

The 15 islanders who have been working on this plan have been meeting monthly since March in the full group and have met often in smaller working groups. The new plan, which is expected to be finalized this spring, will become part of King County’s Comprehensive Plan, which was first created in 1964 to manage growth in unincorporated areas. In 1990, the state legislature passed the Growth Management Act to protect quality of life in the Northwest. That act called for the state’s most populous and fastest-growing counties and cities to prepare comprehensive land use plans looking forward 20 years. In the ensuing years, the plan was updated frequently, until 2000, when the county began a cycle of updating it every four years. This year, the county launched an effort in which all the unincorporated areas — so-called Community Service Areas — will update their plans; Vashon was first on the list.

After this meeting, the process calls for working groups to revise their plans based on community feedback and another public meeting to be held in March. The final plan will be submitted to the King County Council on June 1.

The community plan forum will meet from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20, at McMurray Middle School.

Those who cannot attend can still provide input. Contact Bradley Clark at 477-2449 or Bradley.Clark@kingcounty.gov. Information is also available at .kingcounty.gov/permits; click on”Community Service Area Plans.