House Bill 1379 has it made it’s way through the legislature and was signed by the governor on May 11. When it takes effect, local governments will be able to establish an 18 month moratorium on shoreline building permits in 6 month increments while their planning departments work on Shoreline Master Program updates. If a local government has a moratorium in effect when it submits its SMP update to the Department of Ecology, the moratorium will remain in effect until DOE has taken its final action, or a total of six months.
Eighteen months plus “how ever long it takes” can be a very long time if you are waiting for a building permit. And unless your interest is “vested” — meaning that you had filed your application before the moratorium went into effect — new, more restrictive land use rules may be applied when the moratorium is lifted.
The bill does say that “all lawfully existing uses, structures, or other development shall continue to be deemed lawful conforming uses and may continue to be maintained, repaired, and redeveloped, so long as the use is not expanded, under the terms of the land use and shoreline rules and regulations in place at the time of the moratorium.” It doesn’t say what this means for an undeveloped lot.
What can you do?
If you are thinking about building or remodeling a house, outbuildings, bulkhead or dock, you should seek the advice of an experienced land use attorney to make sure that your interests are vested before a moratorium is enacted. By our calculations, that is likely to happen on or about July 1, 2010.
Why then? According to a timeline presented at a recent meeting of the Kitsap Regional Coordinating Council, the completion deadline for the Bainbridge Island SMP update is December 1, 2012. However, the RCW section that defines the update process says the deadline is December 1, 2011. The 18 month moratorium must be in effect at the time the update is submitted to the DOE to keep it in effect until DOE takes its final action. Therefore, any moratorium must take effect on or about June 1, 2010.
Read the bill here. It is only two pages long.
I would hope that if nothing else we will be exempt from all property taxes if the moratorium goes into effect. How can they collect taxes for property which the owner can not use?
I’m not an attorney, so I’d better not try to answer that. This new law fills a loophole identified by the WA supreme court in the Blakeley Harbor moratorium case. Unfortunately, I don’t think their ruling covered property taxes during moratoria.