Washington State Legislature completes historic year of Growth Management Act reforms
As we recently shared in a Special Edition of the Planners’ Newsletter, this past legislative session resulted in the most significant reforms to the Growth Management Act (GMA) in over two decades. The Legislature and the governor went big on issues like housing and climate change and continued the process of updating the state’s growth policy framework. These successes took strong leadership, a broad coalition and bipartisan cooperation. Adding important requirements to larger urban areas, there was a noticeable decrease in the workload for smaller rural cities. This continues a trend over the past few sessions that apply GMA requirements differently across large and small jurisdictions.
We invite you to read more about these changes in the latest newsletter and to watch carefully over the coming months for new grant cycles, updates to administrative rulemaking, and more on Commerce led guidance in a variety of planning areas. Starting in July, it’s going to be an exciting biennium.