County approves open space application

The Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) held a public meeting on August 30 to discuss the open space application a 12.12-acre land parcel.

The Open Space Taxation Act (RCW 84.34) was passed by the Washington State Legislature in 1970 and mandates county governments to protect open space lands.

According to Associate Planner Marisa Whisman's presentation from last April 2022, the open space program provides a property-tax incentive to landowners to maintain their land in an "open space" state.

The BoCC received one application for the 2021-2022 period, namely aproperty owned by Sarah and Nicholas George, which was described as a parcel under consideration totaling 13.12 acres, and a 12.12-acre partition is proposed for the Open Space program.

The property is composed mainly of open pasture used for seasonal livestock grazing and is also home to “important species” such as great blue herons (Area herodias) and nighthawks (Chordeiles minor), listed on Thurston’s Critical Areas Ordinance (CAO).

According to Thurston county’s site, the Priority Resources categories for which the property qualified are Resource Enhancement and Significant Wildlife Habitat Area.

It was also stated that the objective of the applicants is “to maintain open spaces in active agricultural and conservation practices to benefit the people of Thurston County, improve aquatic habitat connectivity and quantity, and support habitat restoration activities that benefit rare, imperiled, and game species.”

The impact of the application’s approval on citizens’ taxes was also clarified by the commissioners.

“I believe there were thousands of parcels involved and they would be basically splitting about $400,” Commissioner Gary Edwards said, “and I think Commissioner (Tye) Menser pointed it out and said the development was 14.6 cents a year, we'll let the public know this is not gonna be a big hit on their tax rolls,”

No persons of interest gave comments or dissented during the public hearing, and the commission passed the motion to approve the George Open Space Application.