Tumwater’s General Government Committee moved forward with an interlocal agreement to support Thurston Regional Planning Council (TRPC) in facilitating a study to analyze the county’s capacity to meet housing needs in terms of current zoning and land use designations.
The committee agreed to place the agreement on the city council’s consent agenda at its February 20 meeting.
The Washington Department of Commerce projects that Thurston County will need 52,456 additional housing units by 2044.
Planning Manager Brad Medrud told the committee that the study would inform the parties involved if current zoning and land use decisions would be sufficient to meet the county’s housing needs or whether they would have to make changes to accommodate the required housing units.
Other parties to the agreement include Olympia, whose city council passed the agreement on Tuesday, Lacey, Tenino, Yelm, and Thurston County.
The analysis cost is $52,000, with each party contributing an amount proportional to the number of zoning districts in their jurisdiction. For the city’s share, Tumwater will contribute $8,149 to the study, which accounts for 16% of total zoning districts in the county.
Medrud also mentioned that the city is working with Olympia, Lacey, and Thurston County to conduct a displacement study to analyze the impact of updating the housing element as part of the four jurisdictions’ 2025 comprehensive plan update.
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SecondOtter
Thurston county is at capacity NOW. The growth management act has been emasculated and ignored. They keep saying they need thousands of new homes...but doesn't the Dept of Commerce understand that people die? And then the house they lived in is either sold to their heirs or is sold on the market.
The D. of commerce is using the same voodoo economics that the state used when trying to shove a mega airport down our throats.
Thurston county doesn't need more houses. It needs more open lands for those of us to enjoy, to farm, to recreate.
Monday, February 19 Report this
Southsoundguy
Second otter, I agree, productive land use means actually producing something (like food as opposed to a distribution center for stuff made elsewhere). The way we have chopped up productive land in order to slam as many bodies as possible into an acre is gross. I think we could absolutely meet our housing needs and have more open land and more productivity if we abolished zoning and land use laws, and got back to a real property rights regime.
Tuesday, February 20 Report this