Encourage the identification and preservation of historical resources.
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"I think an important backdrop for a discussion of growth is all of the growth management planning we have done in an effort to make sure that as the community continues to grow, livability, open spaces and affordable housing and services are ensured," said Mr. Harold Robertson, Executive Director of the Thurston Regional Planning Council. "Another factor is the transition from rural to urban ... These efforts started in the early 1980s, and culminated in 1990 in the Growth Management Act."
Robertson went on to say that another 130,000 persons were projected to come to Thurston County over the next twenty years. This would constitute a 70% increase in today's county population.
Mr. Fred Knostman, Manager of Thurston County Planning, noted that Thurston County was actually well ahead of the State mandate. "We (Thurston County) began establishing urban growth areas in 1988," Knostman explained. "Thurston County's three major urban areas, Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater, all have clearly defined urban growth boundaries. The communities of Yelm, Tenino and Rainier also have these boundaries. Bucoda has elected to use its city limits as an urban growth boundary."
What urban growth boundaries do is control the density of residences (and therefore, populations) in certain areas. At the same time, the population and housing densities within the urban growth boundaries are more concentrated. The approach promotes planning in which populated areas with city services are concentrated into specific locales, with the surrounding countryside being preserved from the pressures and the requirements of high density populations.
The urban growth approach allows area residents to enjoy preserved countrysides, and to participate in the recreational opportunities these areas offer. At the same time, concentrating city populations allows cities to address the needs of water, sewage, transportation, etc., most efficiently and economically.
"The big thing we're dealing with now is finishing some of the work we've started," said Knostman. "In the forest land conversion project, we have to finalize timber harvesting regulations. What we're working on will meet the recent legislation signed by the Governor that eliminates the DNR (Department of Natural Resources) from administering urban areas, and places that responsibility under county and city jurisdictions."
Under the new policy, Class Four lands, which are forest lands proximate to urban areas that are being converted to other purposes, will be reassigned to counties. Class Two lands, which are forest lands that are being replanted as tree farms, will remain as long-term forestry parcels administered by the DNR.
The new ruling places more responsibility into the hands of localities that can take a look at the total needs and community planning picture. The planning picture combines forestry and open lands maintenance with the needs of serving population centers. It offers the possibility of a more holistic, integrated approach to "big picture" planning by balancing various needsets against each other for optimal solutions. At the same time, the county can take a look at existing commercial and industrial sites in rural areas to see if they are consistent with the Growth Management Act.
One of the key challenges is that Thurston County is growing in residences but not in its economic base. Many are choosing to commute to jobs in Pierce and King Counties, but to reside in Thurston County. With more people and residences comes the need for additional infrastructure in the form of water, sewage disposal, roads, transportation and other community amenities. Knostman sees one of the biggest challenges as brokering the need for these services with residents' ability and willingness to pay for them.
"One of the real issues will be financing of capital facilities and services that the public wants and needs," remarked Robertson of Regional Planning. "The Regional Council has recently done some work by adding all of these costs together. The overall question is, is it feasible? ... Communities have worked through a lot of the planning and zoning factors, but a lot remains to be done in the area of infrastructure financing."
A second issue Robertson sees is the ability of government to provide effective incentives and disincentives to others for the realization of planning and growth management objectives.
"Our vision is to conserve and preserve resource lands," Robertson commented. "Within urban areas, we want to move away from the segmenting of communities that was part of post-World War II housing strategy. Instead, we would like to increase the number of land uses and create mixes of community densities to make communities vital and to give them variety. In turn, these areas must be linked with transportation and utility services. Thurston County is working on a purchase of the Nisqually development rights to keep these resource lands in their present 'open space and resource' state."
The Nisqually Valley is a highly visible "buffer" between the urbanizing areas in Thurston and Pierce counties. By appraising the property and positioning for a purchase of development rights, Thurston County hopes to preserve a natural area between the two counties and to eliminate the potential for highly visible urban sprawl. The desire to develop the Nisqually Valley into housing would be a natural impulse without the impetus from Thurston County to consider other alternatives.
The Thurston Regional Council is also working on further opening up the dialogue between planning agencies and the people they serve.
"It is always an ongoing effort to involve people in the planning vision for the community," Robertson noted. "This vision consists not only of citizens interacting with planning agencies, but the various governmental agencies interacting and exchanging with each other. Most jurisdictions have a number of citizen advisory bodies that facilitate this input, and that residents can join. The input organizations range from historic preservation to broader land use planning, an arts commission, a transportation policy board, and so forth."
The Thurston Regional Council helped Thurston County, Lacey, Olympia and Tumwater prepare a farmland development rights "exchange" program that allows farm landowners to sell their development rights to urban developers. Here is how it works:
A farmer has 100 acres of land, with a zoning density of one unit per twenty acres. Instead of splitting his property and developing five units on it with 20 acres per unit, the farmer sells the rights to develop those five units to a developer who in turn builds five units in the urban area. The farmer is remunerated from the sale; in turn, he sacrifices future rights to develop his farmland into residential parcels. The net of the transaction for the county is that development is concentrated in urban areas; and rural, open areas are preserved. This in turn allows cities and the county to develop concentrated water, sewage, road and transportation infrastructure for urban, high density areas where the majority of the population will be served.
In other rural land use planning, the County has adopted the concept of planned rural residential development (PRRD) that clusters housing into defined areas of large land parcels, often without visibility from roads. The home "clustering" approach rewards developers with greater housing density ratios for the land in exchange for a commitment to leaving large portions of the land as open space. It is in contrast to more traditional rural area zoning, which subdivides large land parcels into 5-acre lots that single family residences can be constructed on.
In urban areas, the focus has been on community reconstruction and the development and delivery of effective public transportation and services.
"The regional transportation plan is being updated this year, which is a major effort," remarked Robertson. "The emerging plan is for transit service to double over the next twenty years, including more use of van pools and car pools. New east-west and north-south roadway connections will be needed. The plan also will involve widening some roads."
Robertson continued, "Lacey is starting work on rethinking the South Sound Mall and trying to make it into more of a 'downtown.' The City of Olympia has been working in North Olympia to see what might be done to prompt mixed housing and retail space usage that makes for a revitalized downtown, particularly in the Yardbirds area. A LOTT decision on sewer funding will be coming up later this year, and will be very important. One long term issue that we don't yet have a total grip on is groundwater and what will be required in the future. I believe this will be a big issue over the next ten years."
Key areas of present planning activity are:
the construction of a sewer and water supply in Grand Mound, which is growing (phase one is scheduled to be complete in October 1998);
traffic studies at key Interstate 5 points into the county that evaluate where cars are coming from and going to;
the evaluation of regional transportation issues, and how plans will be funded.
Mary Shacklett is a staff writer for the Green Pages.
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