Futurewise continues fight for smarter land use

The name may have changed, but the work of Futurewise remains the same: highly effective efforts to protect farm and forestland from sprawl development while making cities and towns great places to live.

In 2005, Futurewise will build on a host of victories in major comprehensive plan updates in Western Washington and is poised to press local governments statewide to fix planning decisions that fail to promote healthy growth.

The dominant forum for these battles is the “major” comprehensive plan updates, required every seven years in most jurisdictions by the state Growth Management Act. These plans are the critical documents that establish what communities will look like as decisions are made about what and where to build next.

Futurewise is running a campaign in every county that is doing a major update -organizing and training citizens, educating elected officials, and enforcing the law.  If our organizing and education does not convince elected officials to make the right decisions, our legal challenges force them to.  

The major updates have, or very soon will have, been adopted in King, Pierce, Snohomish, Whatcom, Thurston, Clark, Clallam, Kitsap and Jefferson counties.

Pierce County

The Pierce County Council responded to Futurewise input and urging by nearly tripling the amount of protected agricultural land in its plan to about 30,000 acres, while simultaneously eliminating some 10,000 potential residential lots from the rural areas. The County also substantially strengthened protections for rivers, streams, and wetlands; and established clearing limits to protect water quality in its rural areas.

The long-term impact of these decisions will be greater protections for working farms and healthier towns and cities, whose ability to raise public money for needed improvements and maintenance will not be diluted by the need to subsidize sprawling subdivisions in farming areas.

Kitsap County

Kitsap County’s plan contains little to rave about. The County maintains its stance of allowing inappropriately dense rural development and of failing to require sufficiently compact urban growth.

Specifically, Kitsap County has approved two areas allowing inappropriate urban-style commercial development in rural areas. The County also failed to conduct a required study to determine if growth is being primarily directed as required to urban areas and, if not, to take measure to ensure that it is. Since 50 percent of Kitsap County’s new growth is happening in rural areas, it’s critical to fix this flaw in the plan.

Futurewise will file a legal challenge that should force the county to fix both problems.

Clark County

Immediately after the election of 2004, Clark County Commissioners embarked on a new comprehensive plan for the county with higher growth targets, higher costs for taxpayers, larger urban growth areas, more working farms converted to strip malls, and dramatically increased traffic.

This future is not inevitable for Clark County. Futurewise is working with local coalition partners like the Friends of Clark County to encourage the county to choose the best plan which includes the capital facilities and funding needed to accommodate this growth without overwhelming our fire departments, roads, schools, and parks. Together the coalition will protect working farms and forests from being converted to subdivisions and strip malls.

Whatcom County

As Whatcom County officials prepared to adopt a “sub-area” plan in advance of the major update, 1000 Friends organized the community to persuade the commission to reverse a decision that would have opened sensitive Puget Sound shoreline at Point Whitehorn and Birch Point to urban development. The final vote saved wetlands and bluffs that are home to sea lions, seals and waterfowl from the damage caused by some 1,200 proposed homes.

The larger updated comprehensive plan, however, has problems that Futurewise expects to repair on appeal. Among them are higher-than-appropriate rural densities – more than 9,700 acres at a sprawling one unit or more per two acres – and urban growth area expansions that are not justifiable by official population projections.

King County

King County has generally made intelligent repairs to an already good comprehensive plan.

The plan contains strong protections for rural areas, positive resources to enhance rural economic development and good new policies on sustainable economic growth countywide.

On the downside, King County did not adequately address lax guidelines on extensions of sewers into rural areas, which can act as a catalyst to sprawl.

Snohomish County

Snohomish County essentially punted on its legal obligation to perform a major plan update in 2004, which means that a fundamentally adequate plan was not significantly weakened.

Still, Snohomish County needs to improve its protections for rural areas by, in part, decreasing allowable residential densities.

Futurewise is likely to appeal the deficiencies in rural protections to the growth management hearings board.

Thurston County

Thurston County failed in its responsibility to perform a comprehensive update to the plan, so Futurewise appealed to fix the abdication.

More than 21,000 acres in the rural areas allow densities of more than one residence per two acres, which tends to produce development that chews up working farms and soaks taxpayers to build roads, extend sewers and provide police protection for these new sprawling developments.  On July 20, 2005 the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board held these inadequacies violate the Growth Management Act and must be corrected by January 2006.

Jefferson County

The Olympic Peninsula county boasts one of the best small-county comprehensive plans in the state, and the major update did it justice.

The updated plan contains good protections for rural and farming areas and good forestland protections.

Clallam County

Futurewise appealed Clallam County’s comprehensive plan update because the county failed to adequately protect its rural areas from overdevelopment.  This appeal before the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings is on hold while Futurewise and the county seek to work out solutions to these issues.