Growth Management Act in Island County

WEAN – Growth Management Act - Critical Areas and Farm Plans History
In 1990 the Legislature passed the Growth Management Act (Chapter 36.70A RCW) because they found that uncoordinated and unplanned growth posed a threat to the environment, sustainable economic development, and the quality of life in Washington. The GMA was built on Washington's strong traditions of local government control and regional diversity. It established state goals, set deadlines for compliance, offered direction on how to prepare local comprehensive plans and regulations and set forth requirements for early and continuous public participation. The comprehensive plan called for by the law would become the County’s version of a Land Use Constitution.
In 1992 the Hearing Boards were established and in 1993 people were appointed to hear and determine allegations of non-compliance with the GMA. The shared mission of the three Growth Management Hearings Boards is to help local governments manage growth and to serve the citizens of the State of Washington. They do so by making informed decisions on appeals arising from the implementation or non-implementation of the Growth Management Act in a clear, consistent, timely and impartial manner that recognizes the diversity of the three board jurisdictional regions.
Whidbey Environmental Action Network – WEAN, in reading the law knew from experience that Island County was out of compliance with the GMA law. Experience had shown that the County Commissioners had no intention of stopping uncoordinated and unplanned growth that posed a threat to our common resources so necessary for quality of life that so many of us treasure. Resources like clean water in our wells, healthy wetlands that maintain our aquifers, rare and endangered native species of plants and fish and sustainable habitats for these species.
WEAN worked through the decade of the 1990's to get a GMA compliant comprehensive plan for Island County. The County Commissioners’ response was to hire a former Executive Director of Building Contractors of Washington State for $60,000 in 1997 to write a Land Developer’s version of a comprehensive plan. The amount paid by County taxpayers grew to $1.5 million dollars paid to Attorney Keith Dearborn. Dearborn used a 1984 Wetland Ordinance in 1998. As long as this ordinance remained unchanged he could claim it was grandfathered because if any changes were made it would have to meet the new Best Available Science standard. The fifteen now twenty year old plan was used by the County to address the Critical Areas requirement of the GMA.
The County attempted to meet the GMA law by adopting Agricultural Best Management Practices –AG-BMP. In 1998 WEAN stipulated that the County could meet their Critical Area protection obligations in using the AG-BMP in the Commercial AG and Rural AG zones. WEAN went to the Hearings Board when the County claimed that the AG-BMP was good enough to apply in all zones. The Hearings Board upheld the WEAN claim that AG-BMP plan did not replace a Critical Areas Plan.
Then the Commissioners went Judge shopping and found a winning one in Whatcom County that did not bother to read the record, gave no findings of fact and ruled on a topic not even a part of the court case. This judge’s rulings were overturned when WEAN took the County before the Court of Appeals. A Court panel of three judges upheld legal arguments submitted by WEAN, the County asked for reconsideration and the Court of Appeals did reconsider and slammed the County even harder. The County then took the Court of Appeals proceedings to the Supreme Court and was refused a hearing of the case, making the Court of Appeals action finding Island County out of compliance with the law, the last legal recourse.
The Farms Plans came into contention when the County Commissioners claimed that the very existence of a Farm Plan demonstrated that Critical Areas were being protected on that property. WEAN asked how they could know this, since the Commissioners had never seen a Farm Plan. WEAN asked to see the Farm Plans, not to torture farmers but to verify the statements of the County Commissioners and to determine if Farm Plans really do protect Critical Areas as required by law under the GMA.
The County Commissions having established their commitment to unregulated development over fifteen years, having exhausted all legal recourse and having spent $2 million + in fighting the legal implementation of the Growth Management Act rather than working to create Island County’s version of a Land Use Constitution there was only one thing to do, get even.
The County Commissioners started a divide to conquer and slander campaign against WEAN. They sent out press releases and questionnaires obviously written in the heat of angst, slandering WEAN and telling farmers that WEAN was out to put them out of business. Mike Shelton bragged he knew where “WEAN is Commie” t-shirts could be bought. Public statements and quotes given to the press and printed as fact made WEAN out to be the bad guy.
WEAN is dedicated to preservation and restoration of native biological diversity of Whidbey Island and the Pacific Northwest. The County’s slander that WEAN is out to put farmers out of business is untrue. Founding members are also founding members of Whidbey Island’s Tilth and 2nd generation Whidbey Island farmers. WEAN would never have requested the Farm Plans if the County had not used the AG-BMP to avoid coming into compliance with the Growth Management Act. This was just another obstruction thrown up to keep Island County a development profiteers’ haven.
Why after the Growth Management Act Hearings Board, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court ruled that Island County is out of compliance with the law and subject to the state withholding taxes have the County Commissioners not done as court ordered? If the County would not have spent the $1.5 million + fighting the GMA but instead spent the money and time implementing the Growth Management Act they could have saved the taxpayers a lot of money and contributed to our quality of life instead of the opposite.
For our seventh generation,
Theresa Marie Gandhi