Land-Use Plan Goes to High Court

By Keri Brenner, The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.

Feb. 6–A long-running legal dispute over whether Thurston County’s land-use plan complies with the state Growth Management Act will get a hearing before Washington’s highest court.

The state Supreme Court on Tuesday sent notice that it would review the county’s case, possibly hearing arguments in late March.

“I think this will be a very valuable opportunity to have the court examine some key issues of statewide significance regarding the procedural authority of growth hearings boards,” said Don Krupp, Thurston County’s chief administrative officer.

The review stems from a 2005 ruling by the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board. The ruling, based on a complaint by land-use watchdog group Futurewise, said the county’s 2004 update of its comprehensive plan was out of compliance with the state Growth Management Act.

After being turned down on appeal to the Supreme Court in 2005, the county appealed the matter to the state Court of Appeals. However, the appeals court’s ruling last April left unanswered questions, according to county officials. They approached the high court again.

Jeff Fancher, Thurston County deputy prosecuting attorney, said there was no word in Tuesday’s notice as to which of the four issues he raised in the request for review were of interest to the high court.

“I’ll know more when I see the order,” Fancher said late Thursday.

Tim Trohimovich, Futurewise planning director, said he had expected the Supreme Court to turn the county down on the second request for review, as it did in 2005.

“Our recommendation to the court was not to take it,” he said. “But apparently the Supreme Court decided it was worth taking, and we don’t know why until we go through the oral arguments.”

Krupp speculated that a key question the high court could address is whether a set of policies or plans adopted more than a decade ago and said to be at that time in compliance with the state Growth Management Act — such as Thurston County’s comprehensive plan — could be ruled out of compliance 10 or 12 years later and deemed invalid.

Counties are supposed to update their comprehensive plans — which are land-use blueprints for growth — every seven years. At the time of the seven-year updates, state law allows outside parties — such as Futurewise — to intervene in the process and file complaints.

Trohimovich has said that his group took its actions because it wants Thurston County to take stronger measures to curb sprawl. Those include preserving more open space and agricultural land, maintaining rural character and protecting natural resources, such as groundwater aquifers.

Since the 2005 ruling, while the case was on appeal, Thurston County has attempted to comply with the growth board’s decision. That has included months of revisions of the comprehensive plan, public hearings and workshops.

The most controversial of the compliance efforts was a plan to rezone much of the county’s rural land to permit fewer homes, but the public outrage over potential loss of value was so strong that the county scrapped the idea. Instead, the county rezoned only the environmentally sensitive resource areas, letting the rest of the rural property owners keep their zoning of one home per 5 acres.

However, the county added a requirement that the property owners must subtract critical areas such as wetlands when they calculate how many lots they can develop in a subdivision. The action, referred to as an “innovative technique,” won a nod from the state Court of Appeal in its ruling.

Futurewise, however, has opposed the county’s attempt at compromise using the “innovative technique,” saying it doesn’t go far enough to protect natural resources or prevent sprawl.

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