Committee to review critical areas ordinance.

This week’s Land Use Committee meeting will include a review of the city’s Critical Areas Ordinance (CAO) as required by city code. According to the staff memo in preparation for the meeting, the section relating to geologically hazardous areas (GHA) needs some changes.

Land Use Committee Meeting
Tuesday, October 6, 2009 – 12:30 – 2:30 p.m.
City Council Chamber

A discussion relating to the CAO will begin at approximately 1:25 p.m. and has been scheduled for 45 minutes. If you home is on or adjacent to a geologically hazardous area (see definition below), you should plan to attend. If you do, please take notes and send them to us.

Victory for King County property owners.

On March 3, the Washington Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge of an appeals court decision on July 7, 2008, which overturned part of King County’s critical areas ordinance. The CAO prevented rural property owners from developing up to 65% of their land.

In July, attorney Brian Hodges, who sued on behalf of the Citizens’ Alliance for Property Rights (CAPR) said, “The county basically drew a line around rural King county and said ‘we’re just going to take-away 50 to 65 percent of your property.’” He also said that property owners might have claims against the county. “We haven’t really thought about what recourse, but there should be some recourse for people who have been denied the use of their property unlawfully for the past four years.”

Now that the supreme court has refused to hear an appeal, damage claims for illegal taking can proceed. The appeals court commented in its ruling that the fundamental purpose of the Takings Clause is not to bar government from requiring a developer to deal with problems of the developer’s own making, but “to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.”

New law to integrate shoreline and critical area regulations.

In response to the Washington state supreme court decision in the Anacortes case last July, the departments of ecology (DOE) and community, trade and economic development (CTED) are requesting legislation to clarify how local governments are to regulate shoreline areas.

A joint release by the two agencies explains the situation from their perspective and describes a solution in the form of House Bill 1653 and its companion Senate Bill 5726. It says in part that the court’s decision “throws into question the validity of 170 local Critical Area Ordinances. Failure to clarify the original intent of the bill could result in a gap in shoreline habitat protection.”

What it doesn’t say is that the 170 local ordinances were written at the direction of DOE in violation of ESHB 1933. That bill was passed unanimously by the legislature in 2003 to hammer home a message to DOE and CTED that shorelines are to be regulated by the Shoreline Management Act not the GMA. The original intent was clear to everyone but DOE and CTED.

Are bulkheads destroying Puget Sound?

The following is an imagined debate between Conventional Wisdom and a Science Guy. It is the second in a series. At the bottom, you will find a link to a longer debate with references to source documents.

[Conventional Wisdom] Bulkheads are being built on upper-beach forage-fish spawning areas.

[Science Guy] The state’s hydraulic code requires that new bulkheads be built against the bank, not out on the beach.

[CW] Bulkheads displace backshore trees.

[SG] Half the bulkheaded sites visited in a Thurston County study had overhanging trees. Trees or other vegetation are usually close to bulkheads on almost any shore.

Planning question.

The question is not whether we want clean water and healthy fish swimming in Puget Sound — we all do. The question is how do we get there and stay there? If there is a public interest in protecting Puget Sound — and we can all agree there is — shouldn’t the entire public share in the joys and burdens of protection?

Is Puget Sound’s health deteriorating?

The following is an imagined debate between Conventional Wisdom and a Science Guy. At the bottom, you will find a link to a longer debate with references to source documents.

[Conventional Wisdom] Fish are dying in Hood Canal. Nitrogen from septic systems is a major cause.

[Science Guy] Fish mortality there has occurred intermittently for at least 50 years. This corresponds to a cycle in ocean upwelling, which brings low-oxygen water into the Canal. The ocean brings 400 times as much nitrogen into Hood Canal as all septic systems along the Canal.

[CW] Dissolved oxygen, essential to marine life, is low in some areas

[SG] This is mostly an ocean-water issue, plus sunlight that encourages phytoplankton (microscopic marine plants) which generate oxygen, followed by decay of the dead plankton that uses oxygen. Rivers and wind play roles too. These are all natural and possibly cyclic.

Jefferson County’s rural land grab overturned.

In a major victory against uncompensated government seizure of private property in Washington State, Pacific Legal Foundation has announced that the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board has struck down a Jefferson County policy that illegally put a “freeze” on the use of thousands of acres of private property near rivers and streams in Jefferson County.

Responding to a challenge brought by PLF attorneys, the Hearings Board found the County’s “channel migration zone” (CMZ) regulations in violation of the Growth Management Act. Adopted in March, 2008, these regulations essentially “roped off” large areas of land on either side of local rivers and streams, prohibiting landowners from using or developing the property, and ordering that it be set aside as “natural vegetation.”