Subdivisions and Plats.

Counties, cities, and towns are subject to laws regarding the subdivision of land.  Subdivision is the division or redivision of land into five or more lots, tracts, parcels, sites, or divisions for the purpose of sale, lease, or the transfer of ownership.  A subdivision of land into four or fewer lots is called a short subdivision.  A city or town may increase the number of lots that can be regulated as short subdivisions up to a maximum of nine.  Counties planning under the Growth Management Act (GMA) may do the same with unincorporated land within an urban growth area.  Subdivisions and short subdivisions must comply with local ordinances around zoning, road standards, shorelines, utilities, and drainage.

Plats and short plats are maps or representations of subdivisions and short subdivisions that show the division of land into lots, streets, alleys, dedications, and easements.

A city, town, or county must adopt regulations and procedures and appoint administrative personnel for summary approval of short plats and short subdivisions.  Regulations and procedures for short plats and short subdivisions must be adopted by ordinance and provide that a short plat or short subdivision may be approved only if written findings regarding the public use and interest to be served by the subdivision are made by the administrative personnel.  Such regulations may contain wholly different requirements than those governing the approval of preliminary and final plats and may require surveys and monumentations.  The regulations must require filing of a short plat, an alteration, or a vacation and must require that land in short subdivisions may not be divided further within a five-year period without the filing of a final plat, with exceptions.

If an ordinance requires a survey, the survey must be completed and filed with the application for approval of the short subdivision.

Cities, towns, and counties must include provisions for considering sidewalks and other planning features that assure safe walking conditions for students in their short plat regulations.  Cities, towns, and counties must also include procedures for unit lot subdivision, allowing the division of a parent lot into separately owned unit lots.

If an alteration or vacation of a subdivision involves a public dedication, the alteration or vacation must be processed through a specific procedure.

Growth Management Act.

The GMA requires that certain counties, and the cities within those counties, engage in planning for future population growth.  The GMA directs these counties and cities to adopt internally consistent comprehensive land use plans, which must be reviewed and, if necessary, revised every 10 years.  These counties and cities also must adopt development regulations to implement their comprehensive plans, which include a variety of land use regulations.  The 10-year review and revision deadlines are staggered for different counties.

The requirement that cities, towns, and counties include provisions for unit lot subdivision is changed to require cities and towns located within a county planning under the GMA to adopt procedures for unit lot subdivision.  The procedures must include at minimum the requirement that prominent informational notes be placed on the unit lot subdivision's plat and recorded in the county in which the land is located.  The notes must acknowledge that:

• approval of the design and layout of the unit lot's housing development project was granted based on detailed review of the specified project, including reference to the applicable permit or file number;
• subsequent subdivision actions, additions, or modifications to the unit lot housing development project's structures may not create or increase any nonconformity of the parent lot as a whole and will conform to the approved housing development project or land use and development standards in effect at the time;
• if a structure or portion of a structure within the unit lot housing development project has been damaged or destroyed, any repair, reconstruction, or replacement must conform to the approved unit lot housing development project or to the land use and development standards in effect at the time the proposed permit application becomes vested; and
• additional development or redevelopment of the individual unit lots may be limited as a result of the application of development standards to the parent lot.

The procedures must also:

• not require any public predecision meeting or hearing or any design review other than administrative design review;
• apply only clear and objective design and development standards;
• be logically integrated with the application, review, and approval procedures that apply to the underlying unit lot housing development project to the greatest extent feasible; and
• be specifically subject to the maximum time period for local government actions, unless an extension is granted pursuant to project-specific mutual agreement.

Cities and towns that are required to submit their next comprehensive plan update in 2027 must incorporate these requirements into their development regulations, zoning regulations, and other official controls in their next comprehensive plan update.  All other cities and towns must implement these requirements within two years of the bill's effective date.  After the requirements have been implemented, no city or town may decline to accept, process, or approve an application for unit lot subdivision solely because that city or town has not completed adoption or enactment of these procedures.

Cities and counties are not prohibited from applying public health, safety, building code, and environmental permitting requirements to a development project that is subject to or integrated with a unit lot subdivision process.  Cities and counties are not required to authorize a development project or unit lot subdivision in a location where development is restricted under other laws, rules, or ordinances.

A unit lot is a subdivided lot within a residential development as created from a parent lot and approved through the unit lot subdivision process.

A parent lot is a residential lot that is subdivided into unit lots.

Unit lot subdivision is a subdivision or short subdivision proposed as part of a development project that meets development standards applicable to the parent lot at the time the application is vested, but which may result in development on one or more individual lots becoming nonconforming as to specified land use and development standards based on the analysis of the individual unit lot.