Bainbridge Island residents who have called for greater transparency in the city’s long-term planning process may have won some ground.

The BI City Council agreed that two civic advisory groups, the Planning Commission and Steering Committee, could work together more closely on topics related to the Comprehensive Plan update, and that the council and the commission could potentially hold a joint meeting to discuss it.

While the council took no specific action, it discussed the prospect at length, and unanimously welcomed any opportunities to collaborate.

The Planning Commission is a seven-person advisory group whose role is to provide recommendations for infrastructure changes on the island, such as road repairs, sewer maintenance, and equitable and fair land use.

The commission began discussing modifications to the boundaries of the Winslow Subarea Plan in January, which must include some changes to zoning density to account for long-term housing targets. But it only has six months to come up with a plan for both the islandwide and Winslow-area updates — much to the chagrin of some residents of the Hawley neighborhood east of the Highway 305 and Winslow Way intersection.

Lisa Macchio, former member of the Planning Commission, said that the current commission is “doing a great job,” but the time constraint may limit its ability to listen to constituents.

“There’s a lot of sausage making, going over the boundaries [of Winslow], and the Hawley neighborhood is very upset,” Macchio said. “Significant, massive upzoning of the Hawley neighborhood. They showed up at the Planning Commission last time, and they’re going to show up again. I think you all ought to be paying attention to how everyone is feeling about some of this stuff. They need, and we need, adequate time.”

At its Feb. 13 meeting, the commission reviewed a few options for new boundaries to define the Winslow Subarea. The western side may be expanded to Finch Road and Sportsman Club Road. The eastern side has a few options: the areas with sewer lines only; the areas with sewer lines and Grand Avenue and Casey Street, without the shoreline properties in between; north to Yaquina Avenue, plus the shoreline; or north to Murden Cove and Highway 305.

Ariel Birtley, chair of the commission, explained that while the group is working diligently to review each plan thoroughly, the work has been “curtailed by other agenda items which take away from our time and dedication to this work” at each of its four meetings. They receive many public comments, and frequently have to stay at the meeting past 9:30 p.m., she said.

“Our current Planning Commission is blessed in that we have a unified vision for the future. We work very well together, collaborating and synthesizing information; we have meaningful discussions, which lead to decisions that take into account the best future for our community,” Birtley said.

The commission’s goal is to complete its recommendation for the Winslow Subarea Plan update by June 30.

City planning director Patricia Charnas concurred with Birtley — the commission has many other responsibilities, but her department is working to schedule extra meetings to help handle routine work that the commission is required to review.

The planning department is “ready to work with the commission on establishing a working outer boundary” in Winslow, Charnas said.

“It is hand in hand, but also in tandem with one another,” Charnas said. “The Planning Commission does have very good ideas — they do have a grasp of a form-based or a structure-based plan that could accommodate our housing targets, which includes a substantial portion of missing middle, so that we can come up with a concept that says, ‘We’re not just building tall buildings for tall buildings’ sake; however, we are increasing the concept of multifamily where it can be accommodated in Winslow.’”