Members of the Thurston Regional Planning Council's Urban Growth Management (UGM) subcommittee discussed updating the region's planning policies to align with recent changes to state law regarding urban growth area (UGA) boundary adjustments.
At yesterday's UGM subcommittee meeting, TRPC planner Allison Osterberg updated the members on the recent changes to state law regarding UGA land swaps.
In 2022, the Washington State Legislature amended the Growth Management Act to give counties a new option for adjusting their urban growth area (UGA) boundaries.
The legislature determined that in some cases, development patterns had created pressure in areas that exceeded the available, developable lands within the existing UGA.
To address this, the state enacted a provision allowing counties to swap land inside the UGA with land outside the UGA as long as the revisions do not result in a net increase in the overall urban area.
The revised GMA, under RCW 36.70A.130(3) outlines the following conditions:
"This created an allowance for UGA land swaps during annual updates to comprehensive plans. It had completely different, similar sounding, but different criteria for allowing those kinds of boundary adjustments," Osterberg commented.
The criteria for UGA land swaps during annual updates include:
In reviewing both pieces of legislation, Osterberg mentioned that the county's Planning directors raised concerns about how the new state-level criteria for UGA land swaps would mesh with the existing requirements in the Countywide Planning Policies (CWPP), particularly around interpreting terms like "patterns of development" and "development capacity."
Due to these complexities, the planning directors recommended addressing the UGA land swap issue as part of a broader review of the CWPPs after the current round of comprehensive plan updates, when local jurisdictions would have more available staff capacity.
CWPPs are a requirement for counties planning under the GMA, providing a framework for jurisdictions to coordinate comprehensive plans and address regional issues. The CWPPs currently include criteria for evaluating proposals to expand or reduce the Urban Growth Boundary, requiring justification for changes and demonstrating alignment with regional priorities. Any updates to the UGA land swap provisions would need to be integrated into this existing CWPP framework governing boundary adjustments.
Osterberg said the UGM subcommittee has a few options to consider:
Subcommittee member Dani Madrone of Olympia expressed concerns about rushing to update the policies without a thorough review. "I think we need to give our planning directors the time to review this thoroughly."
However, Yelm Mayor Joe DePinto argued the county needs to act quickly to take advantage of the new UGA land swap tools to address the region's housing crisis.
"We have a housing crisis here, not only in Thurston County, but the United States as well. These land swaps could provide an important way to facilitate more housing development," DePinto said.
The Yelm mayor proposed specific policy language to amend the CWPP and provide a framework for allowing UGA land swaps during periodic comprehensive plan updates and annual plan reviews while requiring consistency with the relevant state laws and the county's planning policies.
The subcommittee voted 5-2 to recommend DePinto's proposed policy language to the Thurston County Board of Commissioners. But Madrone requested the opportunity to provide a minority opinion, citing process concerns.
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JW
Sick and tired of local government pretending to give a rat's *** about the housing supply and perpetually dancing around the real issue which is their onerous and growth-strangulating regulations and permitting.
Tuesday, August 20 Report this
RondaLarsonKramer
Olympia City Councilwoman Dani Madrone is to be commended for her comments at this meeting and her attempts to get the group back on track, even though she was unsuccessful. "Housing crisis" was cited by the others at the meeting multiple times. No housing crisis excuses violating the law. Good governance means making well-considered decisions. All they had to do was allow staff to take a few months to look into this. That was not too much to ask. I don't recall in recent memory a process that has been this manipulated in advance to push through a single developer's project. It was an ambush, with a draft policy plopped down in the middle of the meeting and pushed to a vote without advance notice to anyone except those who were part of the scheme. The developer of Bar Holdings/Salish Landing manipulated the process because it feared that if staff has time to do a deep dive and create effective policy language on the UGA swap laws, the developer will not get their development approved under the developer-friendly 2022 swap law (which applies to swaps that happen on the 10-year comp plan cycle, which is now) and will have to contend with the more balanced 2024 swap law (which applies to swaps that happen in all other years). With the exception of Councilwoman Dani Madrone and Councilwoman Eileen Swarthout, every elected official at this meeting put this particular developer's interests above the need to create policies that serve the entire community's needs. Thurston County Commissioners will now be able to monopolize a flawed process and rush a development proposal through without letting other jurisdictions get any vote. And all this involves a complexity that boggles the mind. That complexity is why staff needed a few months. Ironically, the complexity probably meant that the elected officials who manipulated this meeting were themselves unaware that they too were being manipulated by the developers. Thank you, JOLT, for starting to take a crack at shedding light on a highly complex issue. We are lucky to have a media outlet that is willing to dive into such topics.
Wednesday, August 21 Report this
Boatyarddog
I see Some people don't see the wisdom of growth management and permitting. One only has to look at the huge amount of commerical building in the South County area to see where priorities lay. I would prefer to see personal vehicals on the interstate highways going to work and back, than all of the huge semi trucks clogging up the traffic corridors with hundreds more to come because a Commercial Airport being shoved down our throats that those land and home owners bought thinking they'd have a life in the quiet countryside.
Wednesday, August 21 Report this
Yeti1981
Thank you Mayor DePinto for recognizing the urgency of the housing crisis and reminding folks that the intent of the legislation is to expidite changes that will spur growth in the right areas.
Wednesday, August 21 Report this
Deanima
RL Kramer, you hit the nail on the head. The developers did indeed manipulate this process, facilitated by the Thurston Chamber. Yes, housing is a priority issue for the County, but in this instance, housing was cynically used as a reason to subvert the deliberative process among the planning directors of the jurisdictions to develop a reasoned recommendation for the elected officials to act on. Mayor DePinto was duped to carry water for the Chamber, which was carrying water for the developer. This was about making money, not providing housing.
Wednesday, August 21 Report this
Tamioly
The mayor of Yelm is wrong. What is needed is low income and affordable housing. Devlopers and contractors won't build build low income and affordable housing because they can' get rich and make lots of money. Even with shameless over the top incentives (not paying taxes on properties for years and waving regulations and fees in exchange for 10% of the housing being low income for 10 years- not a good deal for tax payers , but for devlopers and contractors...excellent deal).
Certainly doing UGA swaps outside the city center for high density housing or low income affordable housing is not a good idea since it lacks the city infastructure and support for this and the dense footprint creates urban sprall. It is just bad planning by our city and county planners.
Wednesday, August 21 Report this
KarenM
The discussion is too narrow when it only includes the rental or purchase prices for housing. Transportation is a large part of many household budgets. (Typical American household spends 12% of their budget on transportation.)
If the new housing is far from services and schools then the household ends up having two cars. Owning a car is expensive and it is not just gas. It is the initial cost, insurance, licensing, maintenance, tires, etc.
When people live near services, schools and transit, they can choose to have no car, or only one car. That is a pretty big deal for a household budget.
Locating housing outside of the urban area is also expensive for all of us. We end up paying for the roads, emergency services and school bus transportation.
Sprawl eats up land that could be farms. It threatens water resources and bulldozes forests and prairies.
Let's be real - sprawl is wasteful and costly.
Thursday, August 22 Report this