POULSBO — After listening to developers, environmentalists and residents, the message to the Poulsbo City Council was clear: keep it as short as possible.

The council enacted a pair of moratoriums on Sept. 13 aimed at giving the city time to adopt its new Critical Areas Ordinance and revise its Planned Unit Development ordinance without an onslaught of permit applications attempting to beat those new guidelines.

“I don’t see this lasting more than six months,” said Councilman Ed Stern.

With the city’s new CAO nearing adoption and the PUD ordinance scheduled to come before the council’s public works committee in the near future, the conditions that caused the moratoriums should be fixed, Stern said.

“I never anticipated it would take us six months to have the moratoriums in effect,” said Councilwoman Connie Lord, who had long advocated moratoriums for the adoption of the new CAO before the entire council agreed to do so Sept. 13.

Many residents and developers concurred with Lord and Stern that the moratoriums shouldn’t last more than six months.

“It is essential for the city council to keep the moratorium in place and to be responsible by trying to keep it as short as possible and get this done,” said Poulsbo resident David Wells.

Kitsap Homebuilders Association President Art Castle echoed Wells’ request, reminding the council of the financial impacts of the moratoriums.

“You are costing yourself 10s of 1,000s of dollars in sales tax and other fees you could be collecting,” Castle said.

Even though the moratoriums were enacted with little advanced warning, the city needs to work with the building and development communities in revising the ordinances and getting them adopted as soon as possible, Castle said.

While the council is close to finishing its work on the CAO, it needs to pay extra attention to the PUD ordinance, said Noll Road Association President Becky Erickson.

“You need to have the PUD ordinance so it’s not used in a creative fashion by developers,” Erickson said, expressing her concerns that the PUD ordinance could be used to create too much density in residential areas.

The council also needs to ensure that the infrastructure — such as roads, water, sewer and stormwater — is in place to meet the demands caused by new development before allowing it to happen, she said.

“I don’t want the moratorium to stay in place any longer than it has to be in place,” Erickson said.

However, before the moratoriums are lifted, both the new CAO and PUD ordinances should be adopted, she suggested.