Further,
the Legislature recognizes that there will be a variety of interpretations by
counties of how best to implement their rural element, reflecting the diverse
needs and local circumstances found across the state.
Section
2: Standard of Review Intent
The
Legislature intends to change the standard of review that applies to the boards= review of county and city comprehensive plans and development
regulations. The intent section refers to the broad range of discretion
counties and cities are given under the GMA and increases the deference to
local decisions by increasing the standard of review from Apreponderance of the evidence@ to Aclearly erroneous.@
Section
3: Growth Management Act Definitions
New
definitions pertaining to the rural element are created.
"Rural
character" is defined to mean the patterns of land use and development
established by a county where the following circumstances are present:
COpen space, the natural landscape, and vegetation
predominate over the built environment;
CTraditional rural lifestyles, rural-based
economies, and opportunities to both live and work in rural areas;
CVisual landscapes that are traditionally found in
rural areas and communities exist;
CPatterns of land use and development by the county
are compatible with the use of the land by wildlife and for fish and wildlife
habitat;
CThe county seeks to reduce conversion of
undeveloped land into sprawling, low-density development;
CExtension of urban governmental services is
generally not required; and
CPatterns of land use and development are consistent
with the protection of natural surface water flows and ground water and surface
water recharge and discharge areas.
"Rural development" is defined as
development outside the urban growth area and outside lands that have been
designated as agricultural, forest, or mineral resource lands. Rural
development may consist of diverse uses and densities as long as they are
consistent with the preservation of rural character and the requirements of the
rural element. Rural development does not refer to agriculture or forestry
activities in rural areas.
"Rural governmental services" means
public services and public facilities typically delivered at an intensity
customarily found in rural areas and may include domestic water systems, fire
and police protection services, transportation and public transit services, and
other public utilities associated with rural development and normally not
associated with urban areas.
In addition, the definition of Aurban growth@ is amended to clarify the
relationship with the rural element and natural resource lands and urban
growth. The definition provides that a pattern of more intensive rural
development is not urban growth.
Section 4: The Rural Element
The county must document in writing how the
rural element harmonizes the planning goals of the GMA and the planning
requirements in the GMA. Rural areas may provide for a variety of rural
densities and uses. Generally, nonresidential rural development, other than
cottage industries, shall be principally designed to serve and provide jobs for
the rural population or serve existing nonresidential uses. Rural development
must protect the rural character of the area by containing or controlling rural
development, assuring visual compatibility with the surrounding rural area,
reducing low-density sprawl, protecting critical areas, surface and ground
water resources, and protecting against conflict with use of agricultural,
forest, and mineral resource lands. Counties may provide for limited areas of
more intensive rural development, including certain necessary public facilities
and services. The county must adopt measures to minimize and contain the
existing areas or uses of more intensive rural development. Dates are
specified for existing areas and uses.
Section 5: Open Space Corridors
This section allows a county or city to
restrict the use of open space corridors to agricultural or forest purposes if
a non-profit organization acquires sufficient interest to prevent development
or to control resource development of the land.
Section 6: Technical Assistance from the Department of
Community, Trade and Economic Development
The Department of Community, Trade and
Economic Development (DCTED) may provide technical assistance to neighborhood
and community groups to facilitate the adoption of comprehensive plans. The
DCTED may also provide technical assistance to counties and cities to
facilitate the evaluation and refinement of those plans.
Section 7: Public Participation Requirements
Counties and cities planning under the GMA
must adopt procedures that are reasonably calculated to notify property owners
and others affected by or interested in amendments to a comprehensive plan and
development regulations. The procedures may include, but are not limited to,
posting property, publishing notice in a newspaper of general circulation or in
other publications, notifying specific groups or individuals, and sending
notices to mailing lists.
A county or city that considers a change to an
amendment to a comprehensive plan or development regulation must provide for
public comment on the proposed change before its adoption if it has not been
previously available for public comment. Additional public comment is not
required if the proposed change has already been discussed, relates to a capital
budget decision, enacts an interim control, or is only technical in nature.
Section 8: Amendments to Comprehensive Plans
A county or city may make more than annual
amendments to its comprehensive plan if the amendment pertains to the capital
facilities element and occurs simultaneously with the adoption of the county or
city budget.
Section 9: Growth Management Hearings Boards
Compliance with the Administrative Procedures Act
The board must comply with the Administrative
Procedure Act (APA), a uniform law governing conduct by agencies, hearings
boards created by those agencies (for example, the pollution control hearings
board created by the Department of Ecology), and judicial review of hearings
board decisions, unless the APA conflicts with a specific provision of
the GMA.
The board is specifically directed to comply
with the APA with respect to ex parte communications. Ex parte
refers to actions by one party without notice to or challenge by an adverse
party. The APA forbids any presiding officer from communicating, directly or
indirectly, regarding any issue in the proceeding, without notice and
opportunity for all parties to participate, with a list of specific exceptions.
Section 10: Official Judicial Notice
A new section enables a board to take official
judicial notice of certain facts. Judicial notice is a rule of judicial
convenience whereby a court or other tribunal takes note of certain facts that
can be substantially verified by consulting sources of indisputable accuracy.
Judicial notice provisions relieve a party or parties of the burden of
producing evidence to prove certain indisputable facts. (E.g., the sun rose at
6:58 a.m. yesterday; the temperature at noon on Sunday was 54 degrees
Fahrenheit; Canada lies to the north of the United States).
A board may take official notice of any
judicially cognizable facts, including adopted resolutions or ordinances of a
county or city, technical or scientific facts within the board's specialized
knowledge, and codes or standard that have been adopted by a federal or state
agency or by a nationally recognized organization.
Section 11: Limitations on Issues the Boards
May Address
The authority of the boards to render
decisions is modified. The decision must be in writing and must articulate the
basis for its holding on issues that have been presented to it in a petition.
The board may not render advisory opinions on issues not presented to it for
review.
Section 12: Direct Review to Superior Court
A new section permits a board to certify a
case directly to superior court for review if all parties to the case agree in
writing to direct review to superior court. The parties have up to 10 days
from the time the petition is filed to file a written agreement with the board.
Section 13: Board Decisions
A board may extend the time for issuing a
decision beyond the 180-day period currently provided by the GMA to allow
settlement negotiations to proceed if the parties agree to the extension. The
boards may allow up to 90 additional days, and the extension may be renewed.
If a board determines that a plan or development regulation does not comply
with the GMA, the board may establish a compliance schedule that goes beyond
180 days if the complexity of the case justifies. The board may also require
periodic updates on progress towards compliance as part of the compliance
order.
Aggrieved parties may appeal a board decision
to the court of appeals, rather than the superior court.
Section 14: Invalidity
A new section modifies the provisions
governing orders of invalidity in the following ways:
CAn order of invalidity is only prospective
in effect;
CAn order of invalidity does not
affect a completed application filed prior to receipt of a board's
determination of invalidity;
CAn order does not affect vested
rights;
CAn application filed after receipt of
the board's order is not affected by the order if it is for one of the
following:
Ca single family residence for personal use on
existing lot;
Cremodeling of an existing structure; or
Ca boundary line adjustment or division of land that
does not increase the number of buildable lots.
In addition, a county or city must do specific
things in order to have an order lifted. The county or city must only
demonstrate that it has taken sufficient measures such that it is no longer Asubstantially interfering@ with the goals of the GMA, the same
standard that leads to invalidity. In addition, a county or city is explicitly
allowed to take interim actions to which applications may vest if the board
approves.
Finally, a county or city may request
clarification, modification, or rescission of the order. The board must
expeditiously schedule a hearing on the motion. The board must issue its
decision on the motion within 30 days.
Section 15: Cross-reference Corrections
Makes technical corrections with respect to
expedited court review of board orders.
Section 16: Standard of Review
In reviewing the actions of a state agency,
county, or city, the board must consider whether the action was clearly
erroneous in light of the entire record before the board and in light of the
goals and requirements of the GMA.
If a board issues an order of invalidity to
county or city, the county or city has the burden of coming back and
demonstrating that the ordinance or resolution it has enacted in response to
that invalidity order will no longer Asubstantially interfere@ with the fulfillment of the goals of the GMA.
Section 17: Compliance Proceedings
The board may modify a compliance order and
allow additional time for compliance in appropriate circumstances. The board
is directed to take into account a county or city's progress toward compliance
in making its decision as to whether to recommend the imposition of sanctions
by the Governor.
Section 18: Reconsideration of Invalidity
Order
A county or city subject to an order of
invalidity issued prior to the effective date of the bill may request the board
to review its order in light of the changes to the invalidity provisions. If
requested, the board must rescind or modify an order to make it consistent with
these changes.
Section 19: Agricultural Zoning
A county or city may implement a variety of
zoning techniques in designated rural areas. The techniques should be designed
to conserve agricultural lands and encourage the agricultural economy.
Nonagricultural uses should be limited to lands with poor soil or otherwise not
suitable for agricultural uses. Among the zoning techniques that may be
considered are:
Cagricultural zoning;
Cclustering;
Clarge lot zoning;
Cquarter/quarter zoning (one residential dwelling on
a one-acre minimum lot for each one-sixteenth of a section of land); and
Csliding scale zoning.
Section 20. Monitoring and Evaluation of
Plans
Six western Washington counties (Snohomish,
King, Pierce, Kitsap, Thurston, Clark) and their cities are required to
establish a monitoring and evaluation program to determine whether the
county-wide planning policies are meeting planned residential densities and
uses. The evaluation must be conducted every five years. If the evaluation
shows that the densities are not being met, the county and its cities must take
measures designed to meet those objectives. The county may only expand the
urban growth boundary after three years of taking measures if it determines
that those measures have not been successful. The DCTED must provide grants
and technical assistance to the counties and to cities to implement this
requirement, unless funding for this purpose is not provided in the 1997-99 biennial
budget (Section 21).
Section 22. Planning and Environmental Review
Fund
The DCTED is directed to encourage
participation in the grant program by other public agencies through the
provision of grant funds. The DCTED must also develop the grant criteria,
monitor the grant program, and select grant recipients in consultation with
state agencies participating in the grant program. Grants from the planning
and environmental review fund are to be provided for proposals designed to
improve the project review process (environmental analysis) and that encourage
the use of GMA plans to meet the requirements of other state programs.
Section 23. Current Use Taxation
The provisions governing access to the current
use taxation program are modified to include land designated for long-term
agriculture under the GMA or located outside an urban growth area and
designated as agricultural land.
Section 24: Property Tax Assessment of
Designated Agricultural Land
In valuing designated natural resource lands
(agricultural, forest, or open space) for property tax purposes, a county
assessor may not include comparable sales that have been converted to
nonagricultural or nonopen-space uses within five years after the sale.
Section 25: Permit Assistance Center
The permit assistance center is part of the
DCTED. Its responsibilities are expanded to include collecting and providing
information on programs used by public agencies that use private professional
expertise to assist in project review.
Section 26. Petition Annexation Requirements
in Code Cities
An area contiguous to a city or town may
petition for annexation (except where property is owned by a school district or
is in an urban growth area) if the signatures of the owners of at least 75 percent
of the property to be annexed are obtained. If the property is within an urban
growth area, the petition must be signed by the owners of at least 60 percent
of the value of the property to be annexed.
Section 27: Code City Island Annexations
In addition to the ability to annex Aislands@ of unincorporated territory of less than 100 acres
surrounded by the city without using the petition process, a code city planning
under the GMA may also annex larger Aislands@ under the following conditions:
Cat least 80 percent of the island's boundaries were
contiguous to the city prior to July 1, 1994; and
Cthe island contains residential property owners.
Territory bounded by a water body is
considered to be contiguous for purposes of determining whether the territory
is an island if the city is also bounded by the same river, lake, or other body
of water.
Additionally, a code city planning under the
GMA may annex larger islands in existence prior to July 1, 1994.
Section 28. Charter City Island Annexations
The annexation procedures for islands made
available to code cities are also made available to charter cities planning
under the GMA.
