As we have previously reported, the Legislature provided funding to the Ruckelshaus Center for their “Roadmap to the Future” project. The goal of the project is to “identify areas of agreement on ways to adapt Washington's growth management framework of statutes, institutions, and policies to meet future challenges in view of robust forecasted growth and the unique circumstances and urgent priorities in the diverse regions of the state.” The project will include outreach to numerous stakeholder groups and the public, as well as targeted research. This will be a two-year process with a final report scheduled for release in June of 2019. You can read more about the project here.

AWC will be a key stakeholder in this process and we have already met with Ruckelshaus Center staff several times. We are in the process of determining how best to engage our members to share the diverse views of our cities. We anticipate that there will be a number of different ways for you to participate.

Our first opportunity to gather input from some of our members will be this week at the annual conference of the city and county planning directors. The Roadmap will be the subject of two sessions at that conference and AWC staff will be there to participate in and facilitate these discussions. We anticipate that by the end of the conference that the planning directors will have identified some issues or themes that they think should be areas of focus for the Roadmap project.