Court Backs Developers in Buffer Case: Ruling Affirms Local Government’s Ability to Write Critical-Areas Laws
By John Dodge, The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.
Oct. 11–Thurston County’s work on a new critical-areas ordinance to protect environmentally sensitive areas won’t be changed by a recent state Supreme Court ruling involving the state Growth Management Act.
In an 8-1 vote, the state’s high court rejected the notion that best available science requires mandatory buffers along rivers and streams.
The ruling doesn’t eliminate a local government’s ability to establish buffers — or no- development zones — along streams, wetlands, flood-prone areas and other critical areas, noted Thurston County chief civil deputy prosecutor Jeff Fancher.
However, the state Supreme Court said, best available science can’t be used to automatically require them, said Andy Cook, legal counsel to the Building Industry Association of Washington.
North said the court decision is important to builders and developers because state agencies and some environmental groups have been relying on best- available science to require buffers.
“Best-available science has never been well-defined,” North added.
The state Supreme Court in its ruling reaffirmed earlier decisions by the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board stemming from critical-area ordinance work on farmlands in Skagit County.
The Swinomish tribe and Washington Environmental Council had appealed the county law to the board, saying the county should have used best-available science in developing the ordinance, WEC board president Joe Ryan said.
But the growth management board ruled, and the Supreme Court affirmed, that the Growth Management Act only requires consideration of best-available science in writing an ordinance.
The ruling reaffirms that local governments have flexibility in crafting critical-area laws, North said.
Regulation issue
Meanwhile, the issue of how to regulate environmental protection on agricultural lands is before the William D. Ruckelshaus Center, a joint service of Washington State University and the University of Washington that is neutral resource for collaborative problem solving.
The 2007 state Legislature passed Senate Bill 5248, calling on the center to work with all interested parties on a way to preserve both working farms and environmentally sensitive areas. A final report is due back to the Legislature in September 2009.
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