Background: The Growth Management Act (GMA) is the comprehensive land use planning framework for county and city governments in Washington. Enacted in 1990 and 1991, GMA establishes numerous requirements for local governments obligated by mandate or choice to fully plan under GMA and a reduced number of directives for all other counties and cities.

GMA directs planning jurisdictions to adopt internally consistent comprehensive land use plans that are generalized, coordinated land use policy statements of the governing body. GMA includes numerous requirements relating to the use or development of land in urban and rural areas. Among other planning requirements, counties that fully plan under GMA (planning counties) must designate urban growth areas (UGAs), or areas within which urban growth must be encouraged and outside of which growth can occur only if it is not urban in nature.

In 1996 the Legislature enacted a pilot project authorizing the establishment of major industrial development locations outside of UGAs for the purpose of expeditiously siting qualifying developments. Among other provisions, the pilot project legislation included criteria for siting these developments within designated banks of land, provided for amending comprehensive plans to implement these provisions, and specified eligibility criteria and termination dates. The provisions of the original pilot project have been amended several times to modify the applicable criteria and termination dates.

Currently, planning counties meeting specific population, unemployment, and geographic requirements may, in consultation with cities, establish a process for designating a bank of one or two master-planned locations for major industrial activity outside of UGAs. The two-step master planned location siting process requires designation of an industrial land bank (land bank) in the jurisdiction's comprehensive plan, and a subsequent approval of specific major industrial developments through a local master plan process. The designation process for a land bank requires the adoption of development regulations for the review and approval of specific major industrial developments through a master plan process.

A planning county choosing to identify and approve locations for land banks must take action to designate one or more of these banks and adopt regulations meeting certain requirements on or before the last date to complete the county's next periodic comprehensive plan and development regulations review that occurs before December 31, 2014. The authority of a county to designate a land bank area in its comprehensive plan expires if not acted upon within these time limitations. Once a land bank area has been identified in a county's comprehensive plan, the authority of the county to process a master plan or site projects within an approved master plan does not expire.