TAKEAWAY
Adher to the GMA, or risk losing your infrastructure funding
Growth Management Act: Overview
Illuminating what has become a noose used by Washington State lawyers and officials to remake Stevens County as they see fit.
Periodic Update Status source
Counties and cities must be up-to-date with the requirements of the GMA, including the periodic update requirements, to be eligible for grants and loans from certain state infrastructure programs. Growth Management Services maintains a list of local governments’ periodic update status and GMHB orders to help applicants and funding programs implement this requirement. When you take legislative action that meets your update requirement, make sure you send the adopting ordinance or legislation to Commerce, clearly identifying it as part of the update. This will allow Commerce to keep information about your city or county complete and up to date.
“Housing” source
The Washington State Department of Commerce is updating administrative rules for the Growth Management Act to address recent legislation on housing, permitting, development regulations, urban growth areas, and rural development.
Growth Management Services (GMS) is actively working with local governments and other stakeholders to ensure local comprehensive plans and development regulations plan for and accommodate housing affordable to all economic segments of the population in Washington. Planning for housing now requires an inclusive and equity-driven approach to meet the housing needs for all residents at all income levels. Rulemaking will reflect recommendations in the technical guidance that GMS developed to support local government planning for increased densities, housing types, and considerations of displacement, exclusion and racially disparate impacts in local housing policies.
TAKEAWAY
DEI is now at the core of housing in the GMA – do you think it is likely that those making the GMA rules consider illegals to be “homeless”?
“Climate” source
Read how climate change mitigation is now a core part of the GMA
Legislation passed and signed into law in 2023 (HB 1181) adds a climate goal to the Growth Management Act (GMA) and requires local comprehensive plans to have a climate element with resilience and greenhouse gas emissions mitigation sub-elements.
- The resilience sub-element must include goals and polices to improve climate preparedness, response and recovery efforts. This is mandatory for all counties and cities fully planning under the GMA and encouraged for others.
- The greenhouse gas emissions sub-element must include goals and policies to reduce emissions and vehicle miles traveled. This sub-element is mandatory for the state’s 11 largest counties and the cities within those counties. -Climate elements must maximize economic, environmental, and social co-benefits and prioritize environmental justice in order to avoid worsening environmental health disparities.
Appendix A - Climate Justice PDF
What follows is from the 2nd page of the PDF that is linked in the main “Climate” area
Jurisdictions must identify the overburdened communities and vulnerable populations in their scopes of work in order to determine if the proposed climate element measures are equitable. They must also collaborate with those stakeholders to adequately determine if a measure may enable or prevent disparate impacts.
This report serves as a tool to incorporate equity and environmental justice in the planning process.
- It summarizes important frameworks, beginning with a summary of the Just Transition Framework, including principles of co-governance, and recommends tools and resources.
- It provides a tool to examine — in in partnership with community members — how criteria can be used to assess the equity/harm potential of draft measures.
- It also includes community-recommended measures, with a description of what goals those measures might address and how they might be applied in the planning process.
Introduction: Climate Justice and Frontline Communities in Climate
Planning
Commerce contracted with Front and Centered to provide guidance in the development of the climate element from the perspective of communities that disproportionately experience harm from climate change. Front and Centered is a statewide coalition of community-based organizations representing people of color and lower incomes.
Climate is fundamentally an issue of equity. Climate impacts hit us wherever we live, work, and play in Washington. Climate pollution threatens our health and the health of future generations — but the impacts are not distributed evenly. Who is at risk is a factor of both who is most exposed, and who has the ability to respond, adapt, and decide. Communities of color, Indigenous peoples, and communities with lower wealth and incomes tend to face the greatest climate risks and are therefore on the frontlines of climate and environmental threats and face greater social, economic, and health issues.
To date, comprehensive plans in Washington have lacked adequate consideration and planning to address the current, historical, and ongoing environmental racism that many communities around our state experience. These plans shape the future of communities in the state and are often a deciding factor in how heat, floods, fires, and other climate-related impacts communities will endure. The existing comprehensive planning process is not accessible or equitable for many people who reside in frontline communities and does not address the disproportionate impacts from climate change.
If jurisdictions want to undo and prevent further disparity, they must identify the overburdened communities and vulnerable populations in their jurisdictions and make intentional efforts to understand the cumulative threats these communities are facing. They must also understand how those issues may be alleviated through land use planning, and how the local communities want to be supported. These efforts should be shaped heavily through collaboration with the overburdened communities through building community capacity and meaningful public participation processes. For additional guidance, please see the public engagement resources and best practices in Commerce’s draft climate planning guidance.
People asserted their disgust and inherent agency when they boycotted woke corporations that betrayed them like Bud Light, Target, Nike, and Disney. How do the people boycott the government when the government betrays the people of Stevens County?
Looking back – How did we get into this mess?
The GMA was created in 1990 and Stevens County voluntarily opted in to full planning in 1993.
Both of the following documents convey details about the repeating pattern of mixed results of the GMA.
Even though the GMA was designed from the start to help coordination by providing centralized input to the counties, something changed in 2020 during COVID…
The Urbanist documented the intentional shift in 2020 away from letting the regions decide for themselves what was best for themselves.
Comprehensive updates pushing the 30-year-old Growth Management Act to be adaptive, inclusive, equitable, and actionable.
“It was different 30 years ago,” Tovar said. “There was a strong belief that the state role should be very passive.” That strong belief translated into our “bottom-up” GMA with protections for local control and barriers between the jurisdictions and the state boards arbitrating GMA issues.
He cited an example of an appeal of a local decision coming before the Growth Management Hearings Board. “When the board says you didn’t comply, it just gets sent back. The Board cannot say ‘this is what you do to fix it.’ They just say ‘that’s the wrong rock, see you in six months.’”
The wall between the board and the localities is part of the longer wall preventing the state from helping cities with more complex issues.
“Bottom up has its merits. Most things fit,” Tovar said. But some issues are regional in nature. “Things like regional housing, it’s hard for a city to respond to a regional need. They don’t have enough influence, let alone data. GMA is not set up to deal with it effectively.” The state has a compelling interest to improve local plans with regional information.
Challenges source
The GMA setup a way to address concerns that arise.
Growth Management Hearings Board
The Growth Management Hearings Board resolves disputes concerning comprehensive plans and development regulations adopted under the GMA. The board is made up of nine members divided evenly into three regional boards: Eastern Washington, Central Puget Sound, and Western Washington.
Challenges to the GMA are heard by a three-member panel comprised of two members residing in the geographic area of a challenge, with one acting as the presiding officer, and a third member drawn from one of the other regions. Each hearing panel must include “a member admitted to practice law in the state,” a former city or county elected official, and must “reflect the political composition of the board” (RCW 36.70A.260).
The governor has the authority to impose sanctions on cities, counties, and state agencies that do not comply with the GMA, as determined by the Growth Management Hearings Board (RCW 36.70A.340 - .345). Sanctions may include withholding or temporarily rescinding the authority to collect portions of one or more of the following:
- Motor vehicle fuel tax
- Transportation improvement account
- Rural arterial trust account
- Sales and use tax
- Liquor profit tax
- Liquor excise tax
- Real estate excise taxes (REET)
TAKEAWAY
The state will force GMA compliance – not only will they remove funding for infrastructure, but they will rescind authority to tax and spend.
If that wasn’t enough – did you catch the bit about “must reflect the political composition of the board”? It is REALLY important.
Some commenters noted that because of Board member turnover, which alters the political composition of the Board, legal precedent changes frequently, thus requiring frequent updates to the content of the notice.
The intent of the clause, “must reflect the political composition of the board”, is stated explicitly to be to prevent decisions and/or rulings that conflict.
TAKEAWAY
The GMHB panels – the only means of challenging the GMA – are enjoined to never depart from the “political composition” of the west side of the state.