News & Info

Do Nothing is a Good Rezone Proposal

Will Stakelin, Govt Affairs Director

During June the Thurston County Commissioners were presented with three proposals regarding the rezoning of rural lands in Thurston County. Two of the proposals - the "Majority" proposal and the "Minority" proposal, came from the Thurston County Planning Commission and are named to reflect what the majority and the minority number of members on the council preferred. The third proposal - the "Innovative Technique" proposal came from County staff.

The Thurston County Commissioners had requested the proposals as a result of the Western Washington Hearings Board's ruling in 2005 that said Thurston County failed to provide a variety of rural densities as required by the Growth Management Act.

The proposals involve 103,000 acres (20,600 five acre parcels) of land. The Majority and Minority proposals concentrate on vulnerable aquifer recharge areas, wellhead protection areas, "at risk" geographic areas (Salmon Creek Basin, Nisqually Bluff and Black River Corridor) and parcels bordering resource lands such as long-term agriculture and forestry. Current zoning in these areas of 1 dwelling per 5 acres would change to 1 dwelling per 10 acres or 1 dwelling per 20 acres for parcels larger than 20 acres.

The Innovative Technique proposal would not rezone any rural land per se, but affects all land owners due to the automatic subtraction of any acreage encumbered by a critical area, such as wetlands and associated buffers, when calculating allowed density and the number of buildable lots. Contained within the Innovative Technique are three proposed options regarding how much of the critical area would be subtracted from the parcel to determine density. If adopted, all three of the proposals would result in a significant loss of buildable lots.

According to County planners, The Majority proposal would result in the loss of 3,800 potential lots, the Minority Proposal would result in the loss of 8,400 potential lots and the three versions of the "Innovative Technique" proposal would result in a loss ranging from 3,500 to 6,900 lots.

Fortunately, there's actually a fourth option called the "Do Nothing" option. That's the option that Olympia Master Builders (OMB) is recommending the County Commissioners adopt because a recent Court of Appeals decision found the Hearings Board committed a procedural error on the issue of rural lands and as a result Thurston County isn't required to rezone. However, because of the Court of Appeals ruling on other issues in the lawsuit, the County has appealed the case to the Washington State Supreme Court. Because of the uncertainty of whether the Supreme Court will hear the case and if so, what their final decision might be, the Board of County Commissioners is continuing to weigh the proposals and a decision on the rural rezoning issue is expected in July or early August.