Ding, dong, the ban is dead.

Property owners in the heart of Lopez Village may now go forth and subdivide.

The San Juan County Council on Tuesday voted without dissent to lift a long-standing moratorium that prevents parcels inside the boundaries of the urban growth area from being subdivided at urban-level densities.

Removal of the moratorium allows for densities of up to four homes – known as “units” in planning parlance – per acre, or up to eight units with an affordable-housing density bonus and a planned-unit development.

The ban went into effect seven years ago and it’s removal was hailed by Councilman Bob Myhr, Lopez/Shaw, as were the preceding steps taken by the council in disposing of it.

In prelude, the council approved two amendments to the county Comprehensive Plan, a long-range plan for water service and for sewer service within the growth area, and adopted by resolution the annexation of 13 properties into the service area of Fisherman Bay Sewer District.

Those steps, according to county officials, could signal the end of a decade-long of tug-of-war over the size and the boundaries of the village growth area, and together bring about its approval by the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board.

“I’m very thrilled to see this action today,” Myhr said. “As I understand it, this should firmly establish the urban growth area in Lopez Village, which when I ran for office in 2005 was one of my priorities.”

According to county senior planner Colin Maycock, the two Comp Plan amendments, the long-range water and sewer service plans, are still subject to review and approval of the Hearings Board. A hearing date with the board has yet to be set, he said.

The urban growth area is a fraction of the size it had been at the time it was first conceived, as well as in 2000 when it was both endorsed and, along with the Eastsound UGA, adopted by the former county commission. At that time, it totaled 466 acres. The UGA now encompasses 198 acres and much of the land once inside its borders is now either part of a “growth area reserve” or included within a “limited area of more intense rural development,” a LAMIRD, located south of the UGA.

Similar to the UGA, the maximum density allowed in the so-called marine center LAMIRD is four units per acre. In the reserve area, considered an overlay district by county officials, and where rural land-use regulations apply, maximum densities are one unit per five acres.

The council also appointed an Ad Hoc Lopez Village Planning Review Committee that will look at past study plans for the village, examine the implications of the upcoming move of the Lopez Village Market, look into walking trails and parking concerns in the new UGA, and make recommendations for the future of the village in a report to the council. According to Myhr, members of the committee will be Nancy Greene, Sandy Bishop, Dan Drahn, Madrona Murphy, Miles Paige, Clive Prout, and Jamie Stephens.