Land Use Study Commission
Summary of Public Comments
Draft 1996 Annual Report

Name

Comments
Ann Aaagard

League of Women Voters of Washington

 
The League places high priority on public participation in the decision making process.
Support clarifying the procedures governing amendments and development regulation adoption, and additional required notification and comment periods if significant changes are proposed.
Many counties have completed county-wide planning policies and expanded vast amounts of public time and money to date to develop Comprehensive Plans under current GMA goals. To allow certain counties to start an amended process could weaken statewide standards which have been established through the GMHB hearing decisions. It could also create a sense of unfairness to those counties and cities who have moved ahead under current GMA mandates.
Support the alternative dispute resolution recommendation for allowing the Board to extend time for issuing a decision if the parties request the additional time in order to complete mediation, negotiations or utilize other alternative dispute resolution processes.
The controversy over rural lands, their definition and designation has been experienced first hand by many League members participating in their local Comprehensive Planning processes. There should be more discussion of the possibility of establishing a reserve (1 unit per ten acres) and rural five acre (1 unit per five acres plus variation) which includes averaging for special areas such as marine areas, rural neighborhood centers, or rural gateway communities providing accommodations to visitors and tourists. The option regarding averaging should include a minimum density standard (for example 1 unit per 2 and 1/2 acres for undeveloped land).
Within agricultural areas, allowing support related commercial services for agricultural is necessary for the area to function as an active agricultural economic activity. League has found the Commission’s utilization of the Issue Papers outlining the background history and pros and cons of the issues very helpful.
Joseph Ahrend

Citizens for River County
River County is a new county that is forming here locally.
Our biggest problem with the GMA is that there is no local control with growth management.
When the state or a higher authority takes away the rights of an individual land owner on the way they are going to use their land this is a violation of the law.
We believe that communities need a plan for growth but the GMA violates the people in having a say in what happens to their land.
We were never allowed to vote on the GMA. We do not want the GMA nor do we need it.
Val Alexander

Coyote Ridge Ranch

 
Recommend reconsideration of projects that are vested but clearly violate growth management policies.
Issue paper 9 a) if hamlets or other rural settlements are allowed very strict definitions and limitations should be set.
Issue paper 9 d) There is no open space designation in Clark County for a current use tax break, so that those who want to leave property in a natural state are forced to adopt timber or agricultural programs to stay in current use.
Strengthen the growth management requirements and define the gray areas better so that commissioners that have been financed by the development community will not be able to escape complying.
Robert. Bedrossian, M.D.
Trying to reconcile each conflicting interest and trying to balance the so called "public interest" with the personal rights of individuals is a difficult thing to do.
Two concerns: (1) When an event of major magnitude is being discussed citizens have a right to know what is going to happen to them. They must be informed that their lives are about to be changed. (2) There needs to be more concern for decreased property values of the existing land holders. There also needs to be more flexibility.
Brian Backman
GMA requirements are unfair. Our property rights are being threatened.
Jim Byrne
Clark County is lacking under the GMA.
The hearings boards are necessary.
The county has allowed growth to proceed at such a high rate that levels of service on intersections are failing.
The county will either have to propose a moratorium on growth or propose additional tax revenues to try and upgrade these intersections.
We need the GMA.
We need true public participation - not hand picked focus groups with a narrow interest.
Vesting - it has allowed circumventing the GMA process. We need more interim protection.
Hal Brandt

Bob Castagna
Make a change in policy in regard to the inflexible Urban/Rural boundary that was thrust upon unsuspecting property owners prior to the adoption of the King County Comprehensive Plan in 1994.
The adoption of the Urban/Rural line and the restrictions imposed upon the landowners who are now considered rural is arbitrary, discriminatory and capricious and should be modified.
The inflexibility of the Urban/Rural Line is a hardship to many property owners in the rural area and existing laws and policies should be revised.
John. Campiche, M.D
Your study audience concerning the appropriateness of the Growth Management Act and the hearings board was not a study - it was a gathering of developers, large landowners, and county officials expressing frustration at being forced to comply with conservation laws enacted by the state legislature and indirectly by the national congress.
They did not present expert testimony but rather personal perceived costs in time and money.
Remember that Referendum 48 was voted down by 60% overall and by 70% in King County.
Don Carey
The Commission has no valid Constitutional authority.
The growth management act is nothing but unfunded mandates, therefore unconstitutional.
Steve Clagett

Executive Director of 1000 Friends of WA
Would like the Commission to document the extent of vesting that is occurring around the state.
Urban Lands - nothing uplifting about this section.
Rural lands - The legislature has put a lot of work on the Boards to interpret and find the goals of the act without a lot to go on. Your proposals there are a good starting point. We should look for some ideas for safe harbors.
Flexibility - serious concern about this area - could open up more areas for bargaining that are not part of the growth management act. Could open up areas that we thought were settled. Don’t make it a loophole that denies citizens appeal under the GMA.
Standard of review - we can move to a clearly erroneous standard but we hope it would be tied to progress in giving the Boards better definitions and more criteria to work with in the rural lands area.
Invalidity - Needed to keep pressure for compliance and invalidity is a tool that provides that as well as provides protection against vesting.
Alternative Dispute Resolution - We endorse this. Any way we can get parties together and working should be supported.
Incentives - A lot of jurisdictions have complied with the GMA and are doing good things and we should provide incentives for them - we seem to focus to much on those out of compliance.
Clark County Citizens United

Jim Malinowski
The Growth Management Hearings Boards should be abolished.
The GMA should be repealed. Or at the very least, be amended to give deference to local land use planning decisions.
Eliminate the recommendation for funding of expanded planning efforts.
The directors of CCCU agree with the following recommendations - Requiring adequate notice of pending planning activities, require consideration and support of rural settlements.
The GMA is hurting people.
The draft report dismisses the magnitude of the problems, and it ignores a major abuse of power from the growth management hearings boards.
Annalee Cobett

 
Do not need to repeal the Growth Management Act.
Agricultural Lands - focus on the soil type and classification as Oregon has done. Prime and unique soils need to be preserved. Look at Oregon’s statutes for good examples. They offer tax incentives.
Gordon Congdon
The current use taxation system does not work because of interpretations by the state Department of Revenue. Clarifying the use of this tool would help agriculture.
Terry Connolly

Governmental Affairs coordinator for Association of Realtors
Disappointed in Governor Lowry’s partial veto of SB 6637 especially those section that would have limited the use of invalidity by the Boards.
The report should identify those counties and cities that are seeing the qualities and fiscal benefits that they have reaped from adopting GMA.
Where is concurrence working in balance with local residential, commercial and industrial needs?
What cost to the taxpayers is GMA benefiting the state?
Mike Dorthalina
There needs to be more flexibility in how the growth management act is implemented and applied to various situations in the county. Also insure the protection of property rights.
Bob Dreyfus
The current situation in Clark County shows why the growth management act is needed.
Impressed with the hearings board -they are extremely knowledgeable about the details in the local situations. They were very generous with Clark county the first time around and it should not have been a surprise to the power that by that they could not get away with it a second time.
Listening to the public and the planning commission got us a zero. Don’t dilute the hearings boards and lets try to make the GMA work.
Joseph Elfelt

Friends of the Law
We support the Growth Management Act.
It is premature to waste enormous amounts of public money invested in GMA planning without making an honest effort to make growth management work.
The Commission should not adopt ambiguous recommendations in its final report. Each recommendation should be accompanied by a specific statement of how the Commission intends that recommendation to operate in the real world. Anyone that believes there is a disconnect between the Commission’s recommendation and its intention can then call that to the attention of their legislators.
Constitutionality - this issue is being raised by those that did not obtain vested rights to develop their land prior to adoption of GMA plans and development regulations which now preclude the type of development the land owner had in mind. Maximum local control does not work. It will take years worth of GMA to achieve some protection for the remaining quality of life in the state.
Hearings Boards - The boards have no power to make local land use decisions. The Board’s are only empowered to help local governments understand the limits of their lawful discretion under GMA. Within the boundaries the legislature established in enacting GMA, the Boards have always provided local governments complete discretion. Since there is no proof from the courts that the Boards have overstepped their authority, there is no need to amend GMA to "reign in" the Boards.
Invalidity - GMA was enacted to begin addressing years worth of bad land use decisions. How is it remotely in the public interest to continue to allow the validity of planning decisions that have been held by the Board to violate GMA and thus lead, by definition to the problems articulated in the legislative findings of .010.
Is there any other land use related state law that allows one found to be in violation to continue committing the offense?
Pro se appeals - Pursuing a pro se appeals to the Board is a laborious undertaking but I do not believe the door should be opened to a flood of ill-prepared pro se appellants.
GMA ambiguities - The Commission should call attention to major ambiguities in the GMA.
Steve Erdman

Concerned Citizens for Sky Valley

 
Do not weaken the GMA.
A few local governments, unwilling to make the decisions which will protect critical areas and rural areas due to extremist pressure from their "property rights" and pro-development constituents, ask for local control but actually want to repeal the GMA.
The Act does not need to have definitions of rural and urban growth added.
CCSV supports attempt to emphasize the dispute resolution process. We believe it can and will reduce the number of appeals and the costs to taxpayers associated with those appeals.
Allowing "other uses" as described on page 8 in agricultural lands simply weakens the GMA.
Standard of Review - If the local elected officials make decisions that are insupportable, they are not good decisions.
CCSV does not support "gutting" the Board’s authority to enter findings of invalidity.
There is no benefit to having Board members confirmed by the State Senate.
Tex Ford
Growth management will result in the less fortunate living in the cities and only those with sufficient financial resources will be able to live in rural areas.
Ten years ago we could get permits to build a house in less than 30 days - now it takes 90 days or longer. How is this consolidation?
There is a suggestion for additional monitoring of monitoring local government - but we are monitored enough by Big Brother.
If we continue to accept enactment’s of outside governments we will find ourselves completely under government control.
Jean Freestone
Local control is not really being considered.
The Growth Management Hearings Boards require the use of population statistics for Whatcom county to determine commercial needs. This does not make sense for us. The county does not have a lot of incorporated areas along the border but that is where we need to locate industrial land so that we can take advantage of NAFTA and other trade opportunities. The Board requires the county to justify the amount of commercial and industrial land based on its population without taking into account the three border crossings with Canada.
Whatcom County has the largest retail purchasing in this state because we have so many Canadians coming into our county to do business.
A large number of trucks going through the county are heading to other locations in the state or to other states.
Michael Freestone

Jean Freestone
Hearings Board process - The appeal process was supposed to be designed so that private citizens could represent themselves. We found that to be totally untrue through actual experience.
Public Participation - The public participation issue paper uses the Whatcom county case to document a need for greater citizen participation, but the Hearings Board made no finding of lack of adequate citizen participation opportunities in CUSTER et. al v. Whatcom County. The "problem" to be fixed needs to be clearly defined.
John Gear
Incentives - Need to reward people in the rural areas for keeping the land in agriculture, reward owners for holding critical lands and sensitive lands so they are protected.
Also need incentives for infill and compact development within the urban boundaries. Within the urban growth boundaries the property tax should be based on land values and outside the urban growth boundaries the property tax should be based on the value of structures.
Thomas Gihring
Have been conducting a research project of the past 14 months on an assessment of the feasibility of using incentive property taxation to help implement the state’s GMA.
The study area is Clark County.
Will submit a abstract for your review.
Bob Hart
Rural designation of five acre parcels simply does not work. In Skagit county, 91% of the county is in natural resource lands or government owned, 4% is within cities or proposed urban growth areas, leaving 5% in rural area. This includes 100 year old villages that have post offices since the time of Abraham Lincoln. Virtually includes all of our waterfront areas that are not resource lands. Some areas should be allowed to have greater densities.
Standard of Review - Moving from the preponderance of evidence standard is clearly necessary. We need something that gives more deference to the Legislative process. Clearly erroneous is better than preponderance of evidence.
Martin Hayes
Growth Hearings Boards do not have authority to make laws. "Local control" in practice, typically means a few huge landowners control the political process through power, money and intimidation.
Recommendations to restore local control will allow rich landowners to make the local rules once again.
Keep the Boards. No Senate confirmation process.
Do not make financial impacts less apparent.
Public participation is an excellent recommendation.
Don’t tie the urban growth definition with the level of service definition.
The Boards have done a superb job in defining rural growth.
Exempting individual rural land parcels from development regulations will invalidate zoning rules and be a means of fatally weakening the GMA--as powerful landowners "convince" their localities they deserve the proposed exemption.
Individual county-flexibility in modifying GMA requirements will prove fatal to the GMA. It is essential that minimum rules of the game apply statewide.
Invalidity rules work fine for those who comply, and are abhorrent to those wanting to defy. The rule breakers, not the rules are the problem.
Alternative dispute resolution - the 180-day decision timeline seems interminable. Stretching it out further for semi-endless negotiations will eviscerate the effectiveness of the Boards.
Infrastructure finance - the proposed funding mechanisms will reduce public understanding of future debt commitments, thus driving mega-development rather than controlling it.
The Commission’s draft recommendations will weaken the effectiveness of the GMA. Overall, your conclusions represent a significant disappointment.
June Helbig
All the outcry against GMA is falling on the deaf ears of your board of mostly lawyers and bureaucrats who have a lot to gain financially from GMA.
GMA is very likely in violation of the Constitution of Washington State.
The GMA is a blatant attempt to take land use planning from local people and centralize it as a state power.
The GMA appears designed to control rural land so that nearly all people will be forced to live in cities.
The Boards are enforcing guidelines written by unelected bureaucrats. This is contrary to every value of freedom, choice and private enterprise our Constitution guarantees. In rural Mason and Ferry counties, all business and industry, and most future housing are restricted to a single square miles or less, rendering the vast remainder of the land as an economic death zone. In Skagit County, the GMA forbids development on the ground that is above the flood plain, while forcing all future development into tiny urban areas that lie in a flood plain.
The entire GMA is flawed and all of it should be eliminated.
Martha M. Ireland Commissioner

Clallam County
Anything less than total elimination of the Growth Management Hearings Boards is unacceptable and insufficient.
The Growth Management Act is bad legislation that generated bad government and bad planning.
GMA inspired regulations have actually caused intrusive development that would not have happened otherwise and increased negative impacts on neighbors, all for no net gain in environmental protection.
Your end product should be a bill that repeals the GMA and simultaneously replaces it with a state land use planning law that 1) respects the state and federal constitutions which require representative government, and 2) encourages and enables good planning at the local level.
John Karpinski
Requests for fine tuning are a way to water down the GMA.
Financing 1B: you have to protect the citizens also. Look at tax increment financing.
Public participation - I agree with your draft report.
Urban lands - a, b, and c and time you get more specific is good.
Rural lands issue - a definition is good idea.
A safe harbor - is this going to be a lower state minimum is state control? Not sure this is necessary. Innovative techniques in regard to agricultural land is fine.
Flexibility - absolutely no.
Standard of review - we are fine now and clearly erroneous does not make much difference.
Invalidity - The motion for reconsideration procedure is faster than a new procedure to resolve ambiguities over an order of invalidity. We do not need a new mechanism.
We do need to figure out vesting better.
Alternative dispute resolution should be encouraged more.
Maxine Keesling
King County is not observing the GMA goals on broad dissemination and public participation and notice, protection of viable farming, and best available science.
A new suburban classification, with no sewer requirements and which allows at least a certain amount of outdoor burning, is needed. Existing, developed areas can’t be erased - they were developed under valid pre-GMA laws, and their problems need solving. At least clarify the sewers issue. I find nowhere in the GMA where sewers are required in urban areas, but various governments are interpreting them that way. As long as lots meet State Health Department requirements, they shouldn’t arbitrarily be required to have sewers merely because of a land designation.
Lorraine Kile
The Commission's membership does not represent the public as a whole. Rural land owners are not represented.
This is a skewed commission of mostly Westsiders.
The Commission needs more representation from so the Eastern side of the mountains and rural areas.
Les Kile
No changes should be made to the GMA until its constitutionality is determined. The people of this state have a right to know that any law they are asked to obey does not deprive us of our rights under the constitution.
Debbie Kirkman
With the North Sifton Neighborhood. The GMA is the only thing keeping developers in check.
Clark county is unwilling or unable to resist the pressure from development. We have failing roads and increasing taxes the result of the big land rush here.
If we rely on local control in this county we will continue to have more failing intersections, more failing school bonds, not enough traffic capacity to support new schools.
No one who buys a piece of property should assume that they can do anything that they darn well please with it. There are rules and regulations that go with everything.
Our county has taken public input, but only as a gesture. The general public is not taken seriously. The county has basically ignored the Boards and the county’s comments were arrogant. To abolish the board and repeal GMA would be an outrage to the local citizens.
Greg Kipp

 
Rural Lands - The lack of a definition of in the Growth Management Act has posed a significant challenge to jurisdictions. We have very different characteristics of rural in our counties. As a result attempting to determine what is appropriate development within rural areas is a challenge. There are a variety of uses and densities that should be allowed at local discretion. Need to respond to compatibility not only with rural, mineral and resource lands but with the rural character. Don’t establish minimum densities.
Urban Lands - In the issue paper the clarification is well done and needed in the act and we support that.
Standard of Review - moving to providing more difference to decisions made by local jurisdictions is a good step to amendment to the act. Clearly erroneous seems to be a good standard. Alternate dispute resolution processes if the parties are in negotiations to correct a problems providing more time to make correction is a good move.
Incentives - this is a positive approach to implement the GMA.
F.L. LaPierre

Mr. & Mrs.
We offer our congratulations to the Western WA Growth Management Hearings Board for their recent decision which found Clark County in violation of the state planning law.
We question an extremely large parcel of land to the east of 50th Avenue between 179th and 159th streets in Clark County which was zoned Urban and now has the classification of Office/Campus.
Seems to be a contradictory to good growth management to encourage commercial development in the middle of a rural area.
Carol Levienon
The GMA has produced the most ugliest thing I have ever seen in this county. If it continues all it will do is separate the people of this community.
The GMA has major problems.
The hearings boards do not leave in this area and are making decisions for our local people that we just cannot accept.
Earl Marcellus

Chelan County Commissioner
I was one of the two county commissioners that signed on to the lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of the growth management act. Our case has been dismissed on procedural grounds. We have never had our concerns on constitutional grounds heard we believe that individual rights are superior to community rights. When majority rules then the minority it hurt.
We are not opposed to managing growth at the local level but we are opposed to is the growth management act as it now stands.
If it had remained as it was in 1990 has house bill 2929 there would be no lawsuit coming out of Chelan County. As it has been amended over the last six years it has become the most onerous law ever to be passed and amended in this state.
Doyle McClure

Board member of Friends of Skagit county
Supportive of the GMA and the Growth Management Hearings Boards.
Incentives and financing infrastructure is very important. Those of us in Skagit county the growth problems are immense.
Urge caution in giving too much emphasis to those who advertise themselves as "property rights people." They represent a part of property rights, but there are others who own property and don’t what it diminished by inappropriate development and don’t want to pay the price for cut and run developers who don’t develop the appropriate infrastructure in high density rural developments.
The Coalition of Washington Counties - people have been trying to find out what this organization is. It supposedly has a number of county officials but there is no public disclosure. It appears to be a representative of a number of special interest groups that are operating under the table and we would caution you on the weight that you give their testimony.
Local governments are extremely vulnerable to a small number of special interest groups - people that have substantial financial clout. Our county has time and again overtly violated the growth management act and they have been found out of compliance by the Boards.
If invalidity is lifted, it opens the window for vesting during an appeals process and it is clear in our county that actions have been taken by local government that clearly are counter to the GMA.
David McDonald
The act does give the people a sufficient amount of say. It gives the local jurisdiction a reasonable range of discretion. There are specific state minimum guidelines to make sure there is a minimum compliance.
The problem in Clark County is that the county simply failed to comply with the minimum guidelines and they have admitted it.
The time and energy it takes to educate a Superior court judge as to the GMA is burdensome on everyone and it takes up a huge part of the court docket. We have the Boards who are familiar with the GMA, have the understanding of cases before them and this is how it should be.
The Boards first find if the county is in compliance. and if not they have the choice or either remanding or finding invalidity. Only 10 findings by the Boards out of 800 appeals is a very small number where they have overturned the local decision. So the notion of them being heavy handed is not true.
Edgar Meyer, M.D.
Changes to the GMA should be limited to fine tuning and clarification.
It has become obvious to us in Chelan county that it is conceivable that many counties could have two of three commissioners elected and controlling planning and development that does not serve the common good or wishes of the great majority of the electorate. "Local control" then becomes control by two elected officials who might be extreme in their philosophy about property rights -- probably vehemently supported by an extreme minority.
Judith Minihan
Growth is a problem and we need answers to what is happening in our neighborhoods.
John Moffatt
Invalidity - Should be a longer remand period. Once legislation is adopted by a local jurisdiction that removes the substantial interference with the GMA, invalidity should no longer exist and applications should be able to vest.
Pre GMA regulations should not be a subject to an order of invalidity.
There is a need to address applications that come in on the date of invalidity.
The Hearings Boards should not have the option to discover other items it doesn’t like and issue invalidity orders or rulings on those items.
There is a need to have language that restricts the Hearings Boards authority to issue orders on exactly what’s been raised in the petition and limit compliance orders to what has been addressed in the original orders.
Clifford Morris
The Commission needs to make sure that everyone in the county is aware of its meetings.
The commission needs to be much more rounded than it is.
There are to many attorneys involved in the decisions. We can use the spirit of the Lord to guide us.
The growth management act is enforcing controls and hemming in everything and suddenly your are emasculating values.
The GMA is making it difficult for first time home buyers to find reasonable housing.
Marie Oesting
I support the growth management process and would be disappointed to see it gutted.
Pacific county will be a terrible mess if we do not get a growth management plan - soon.
Martin Overstreet

1000 Friends of Washington.

Support the GMA.
The act and the boards are needed to protect the rights of the local communities from those whose narrow interests profit most.
Growth is going to happen.
The future of this county is in balanced economic development in a way that sustains those values we can here for.
The GMA is the legislative instrument that compels all parties to the table to work for a better community.
Debbie Romilly
The powers of the growth hearings boards should not be diluted. Without the boards, very powerful vested interests will trample on the act and its intent and the best interests of this community.
Paul Parker

Washington Association of Counties
There has been some suggestion that there should be a suburban category, although there is disagreement on this point.
There should be more flexibility. Not every community that exists within an urban growth area wants to be a city. An area does not need to incorporate in order to be served or recognized as urban.
Rural lands - we will give further guidance in the definition of rural growth.
Safe harbor - there will be mixed feelings it can cut both ways. It will be viewed as a minimum that has to be met and whatever that you can do to prevent that from happening will increase our comfort level with having safe harbor options.
Agricultural lands - additional innovative zoning will be helpful and useful.
Flexibility - yes we want more flexibility but do not want to work it out through a county wide planning process.
Standard of Review - There should be a more differential standard of review. WSAC believes it should be the arbitrary and capricious standard.
Invalidity - Invalidity should be a power of the courts, not the boards. The recommendations are movement in the right direction.
Incentives - there clearly need to be incentives for those who have done the work and are moving forward.
Infrastructure - Filling in this missing piece of GMA is a big part of what are emphasis is going to be this year.
There needs to be a better articulation of what the state interests are. The state ought to be required to participate more clearly in the local planning processes. Sometimes state agencies come in at the 11th hour to make their recommendations and its difficult then to shift gears to accommodate the concerns. If a local plan requires development of state capital facilities that the state should be required to tell the legislature of that need and request the necessary funding. We see growth management as a partnership between cities and state.
Bring back the legislation of the clean up legislation for 1724 from last year.
Linda Evans Parlette
Please emphasize flexibility to the Legislature.
Howard Pellett
Do not the change the growth management act it is working well in those jurisdictions which are implementing GMA in good faith.
It provides ample opportunity for local control. What is objected to by development interests is the fact that citizen groups have effectively exercised local control to the frustration of the old boy system formerly in place in many Washington jurisdictions.
Since building and development interests were unsuccessful in their efforts to get Referendum 48 passed, they now seek to weaken GMA through proposals to be advanced by the Land Use Study Commission.
I oppose any changes to the Growth Management Act and object to any attempts to negate the effectiveness of the Growth Management Hearings Boards.
Bill Perrin
Development does not pay for the cost of infrastructure the tax payers in a jurisdiction are subsidizing and paying for that development. I would encourage you to look at impact fees.
Anthony Raab
Urban growth boundaries - The forced creation of arbitrary urban growth boundaries is pitting the counties and cities against each other and the whole against the growth management act itself. Existing services do not determine where a UGA will be located.
Sprawl - What is the logic behind forcing Ferry County with 7500 people and one blinking red light in the entire county forces them to pay ten of thousands of dollars planning for urban sprawl.
Housing - Affordable housing is being destroyed by the Growth Management Act. Anytime that you cut land supply in half that is being done in rural areas prices will rise dramatically. A variety of densities is a joke in the rural areas where only five area parcels or larger will be allowed by the Growth Management Hearings Boards. A variety of densities are allowed in the shrunken urban growth areas where the populations will double and people and traffic will pile up on top of each other.
Economic development - Since no new commercial or industrial development will be allowed outside of these shrunken UGA, actual economic growth will be stifled and real living wage jobs undercut and not enhanced.
Property rights - This is the true farce of the Growth Management Act. I personally know hundreds of people whose dreams, future, retirements and children’s education have been destroyed by the arbitrary and capricious downzoning of hundreds of thousands of acres of rural land in Washington State.
Under the guise of enhancing natural resource industries - the various agencies and departments have destroyed land use rights by unnecessarily locking up hundreds of thousands of acres of marginal resource lands.
The GMA is not protecting the farming community if we take agricultural lands. Both the Farm Bureau and the Washington State Grange are supporting the repeal of or at least a major rewrite of the Growth Management Act.
The Growth Management Hearings Boards have usurped local control while prioritizing the environmental agenda.
Recommend the removal of the Growth Management Hearings Boards power to invalidate existing local ordinances. The Boards should be advisory only and local government officials should regain their power to make the final decisions.
The constitutionality of the growth management act should be reviewed in the Supreme court as soon as possible.
Joe Renn
Does the Legislature run its bills by the attorney general’s office to see if it is constitutional?
There should be no question about the constitutionality of any bill that comes out of our Legislature.
Dave Sturdevant

Clark County Commissioner
There is a need to recognize that local governments need flexibility to make the best choices for their communities.
The GMA should be modified to clarify the range of alternatives to counties and cities without undermining the act itself.
The language used in the Western Board's recent order and the substitution of their judgment for the decision making process has caused anger at the unprofessional and antagonist language used by the hearings board.
CTED has used portions of the Clark County plan as a model for consideration by other jurisdictions trying to cope with problems raised by rapid development in and near UGAs.
Clark County took the GMA seriously and spent years of time and hundreds of thousands of dollars developing a plan.
Kathy Sutter

Whatcom County Council; and Coalition of Washington Counties

 
Whatcom County has not been able to get a plan adopted in part because of the hearings board process. Anyone can file and appeal regardless of where they are from our area. All that is required is that they have participated in public process prior to adoption of the challenge legislation. They do not have to have a direct property ownership interest in the affected area. Anyone wishing to intervene does have to have that interest and may not have their interest adequately represented. This results in an unequal application and a lack of due process.
Petitioners are not required to bear the financial burden. Petitioners are not accountable for their appeals.
There seems to be a misconception that the purpose of the GMA is to protect the environment. In fact the 13 goals of the act in only one of them directly relates to the environment. Prioritizing of the goals is supposed to be at the direction of local jurisdictions however every time that the Board bases a non compliance or invalidation on environmental protection they have chosen to place that goal ahead of the others and sometimes the environment is going to have to take a back seat to economic development, housing, transportation or property rights. It should be up to locally elected officials to make those decisions.
Paul Taylor
Life time resident of Skagit county.
GMA is repugnant to all constitutional principles. It is big government personified.
It is not working in Skagit county. 61% of the county of owned by the state and federal government. Of the remaining 40% approximately 25% is in either prime forest or agricultural land. Zoning outside of the city is approximately less than 10% of the total and in Skagit county.
GMA is requiring that that land be downzoned. GMA ignores geography and economics. Most of the people do not know how they are being affected by this legislation.
If your property is being affected by GMA you should be notified in writing of the effect on that property.
The Growth Hearings Boards are not working. Significant definitions need to be done.
Gary Wade
Do not weaken the growth management act.
Robert Wattex
Do not repeal the Growth Management Act.
The Hearings Boards are the only real teeth the GMA has and the only tool the average citizen can count on to fight against the rich and powerful development community.
Lee Weigerdt

Willapa-Grays Harbor Oyster Growers’ Association

 
Since the Long Beach Peninsula’s aquifer is single source, totally, enclosed, and drains 70% into Willapa Bay all development activities there impact the present and future existence of the shellfish industry.
"Grandfathering" of speeded up permitting is one of our biggest threats.
Some of the Commission’s options would substantially weaken the Board’s authority to invalidate pre-existing and non-compliant regulations.
We believe that the Commission should look at ways to restrict the vesting window. For example, the vesting window could be closed by amending GMA to provide that no vesting for a GMA plan or regulation found to be out of compliance could occur subsequent to the date that an appeal to the GMA regulations was filed.
Bob Yoesle
Representing the rural Clark county preservation group.
Agree with the hearings boards with regard to the violations of law.
Support of the goals of the GMA.
The latest decision of the board is based on the undeniable evidence of record. Documents received from CTED show that Clark county knew what to do for the interim regulations on natural resource areas. Instead they adopted the plan without putting any of the suggestions into practice.
Frank Yuse

Spokane county planning commission
We need better dissemination of information to the public about this issue.
The categories of the GMA do not fit Spokane exactly.
There needs to be a suburban category.
The areas that request urban services should be automatically annexed.
You should look at the issue of border committee working together in planning issues.
I’m concerned that those of us in the planning committees are being left out of the process.

 

November 7, 1996