Growth Management Act.
The Growth Management Act (GMA) is the comprehensive land use planning framework for counties and cities in Washington. The GMA establishes land-use designation and environmental protection requirements for all Washington counties and cities. The GMA also establishes a significantly wider array of planning duties for 28 counties, and the cities within those counties, that are obligated to satisfy all planning requirements of the GMA. These jurisdictions are sometimes said to be fully planning under the GMA.
Counties that fully plan under the GMA must designate urban growth areas (UGAs), within which urban growth must be encouraged and outside of which growth may occur only if it is not urban in nature. Each city in a county must be included in a UGA. The UGAs must include sufficient areas and densities to accommodate projected urban growth for the succeeding 20-year period.
The GMA also directs fully planning jurisdictions to adopt internally consistent, comprehensive land use plans. Comprehensive plans are implemented through locally adopted development regulations, and both the plans and the local regulations are subject to review and revision requirements prescribed in the GMA. Comprehensive plans must be reviewed and, if necessary, revised every ten years to ensure that it complies with the GMA. When developing their comprehensive plans, counties and cities must consider various goals set forth in statute.
Each comprehensive plan must include a plan, scheme, or design for certain mandatory elements, including a housing element. The housing element must ensure the vitality and character of established residential neighborhoods and, among other requirements, consider the role of ADUs in meeting housing needs.
Accessory Dwelling Units.
An ADU is a residential living unit providing independent living facilities and permanent provisions for sleeping, cooking, sanitation, and living on the same lot as a single-family home, duplex, triplex, townhome, or other housing unit. An attached ADU is a dwelling unit located within or attached to another housing unit. A detached ADU is separate and detached from another housing unit.
Cities with more than 20,000 people, counties with more than 125,000 people, and counties that are required to plan under the GMA are required to incorporate in their development and zoning regulations recommendations made in 1993 by the then Department of Community, Trade, and Economic Development, now the Department of Commerce (Commerce), for the development and placement of accessory apartments.
As of July 1, 2021, fully planning cities under the GMA may not require the provision of off-street parking for ADUs within a quarter mile of a major transit stop, such as a high-capacity transportation system stop, a rail stop, or certain bus stops, unless the city determines that on-street parking is infeasible for the ADU.
By their next comprehensive plan update after July 1, 2021, fully planning cities and counties must ensure local development regulations allow for the construction of ADUs within UGAs. City and county ADU regulations may not include:
Cities and counties may apply certain regulations to ADUs, including:
Cities and counties may offer incentives to encourage the development or construction of ADUs, including waiving or deferring fees, deferring the payment of taxes, or waiving specific regulations, if the units are subject to binding commitments or covenants that they will not be regularly offered for short-term rental.
Except for restrictive covenants or deed restrictions created to protect public health and safety or to protect ground and surface waters from on-site wastewater, a restrictive covenant or deed restriction created after the effective date of the act for property located within a UGA may not impose any restriction or prohibition on the construction, development, or use of an ADU that city or county would be prohibited from imposing. A city or county issuing a permit for the construction of an ADU may not be held civilly liable on the basis that the construction of the ADU would violate a restrictive covenant or deed restriction that was created after the effective date of the act.
The amended bill provides an exception to the prohibition against covenants or deed restrictions that prohibit or restrict the construction, development, or use of an accessory dwelling unit if the prohibition is necessary to protect public health and safety or to protect ground and surface waters from on-site wastewater. The amended bill also removes the prohibition against the covenants and deed restrictions from the growth management statutes and includes it in the statutes governing common interest communities.
(In support) Accessory dwelling units are a part of the solution to the state's housing crisis. This bill will allow individual homeowners to help with the housing crisis. Builders are supportive of easing the restrictions and regulations on ADUs.
(Opposed) This bill is proscriptive in nature and takes away local control. While changes have been made to the bill and the timing does not make it an unfunded mandate, the bill preempts local parking decisions and treats all lots of a certain size in the same manner. Some counties have many short-term rentals, and this bill would prohibit them from retaining owner-occupancy requirements. This is a one-size fits all policy that is not workable for all counties.
(Other) While this bill is less proscriptive on cities, ADUs should be regulated at the local level. This bill raises concerns about an ADU's physical proximity to onsite sewage and the maximum amount of permeable surfaces a lot may have. Cities should be allowed to require ADUs to meet certain design standards, such as matching the design style of the main house and requiring heights that do not exceed that of the main house. The bill needs to be aligned with any middle housing legislation and not require ADUs in addition to middle housing. The parking requirements should match what is in the middle housing bill. Site-specific parking considerations should be allowed. On-site parking restrictions can be a real issue on narrow streets. Some cities have adopted Commerce's best practices and are looking at ways to increase ADUs. Cities can make these changes given money and time. However, owner-occupancy requirements are impossible to enforce. Any population density resulting from more ADUs should be part of the population calculation for a city's GMA requirements. None of the land use bills should be applied until a city fails to meet their population requirements. Implementation of the requirements should be extended until six months after a city's next comprehensive plan update to allow for the adoption of new development regulations.