The 2018 session started out with a bang on the environmental and land use front, with heavy action and negotiations on the long-delayed “Hirst” bill restarting. AWC was actively engaged in the challenging political fight over the resolution of the Hirst and Foster Supreme Court cases on water management. AWC worked tirelessly all last session, throughout the interim, and into this session to help secure a hard-fought bipartisan compromise on this complicated and emotional issue. The compromise bill, ESSB 6091 will allow rural housing development across the state to continue in a way that protects the state’s critical fish resources (the Hirst issue). In addition, the bill includes a significant first step to ensuring a viable path for cities to access water rights into the future (the Foster issue). The final deal provides needed clarification of the cities’ responsibilities under the Growth Management Act, and with building permit and subdivision approvals when it comes to availability of water. In addition, the bill sets in motion a process to fix the Foster case that left cities needing new water rights with no viable path forward. It was a constant challenge to keep the Foster issue on the table as the Legislature was more focused on the emotional and contentious rural well issues from the Hirst case.

The resolution to this fight may have taken the wind out of the sails for proposals that dealt directly with local government environmental responsibilities. Many of the bills directly implicating local governments did not advance very far throughout the rest of session. For example, SB 6077 would have required a mandatory density of at least six units per acre in all urban growth areas; but it only received a cursory hearing and did not advance any further. There was deep debate and discussion about climate change, alternative energy, and the state’s oil safety regulations; however, bills primarily focused on local governments, or where we were the primary stakeholders, were lighter than most sessions.

AWC’s next steps

Moving forward, our expectation is that the Ruckelshaus Growth Management Act review process will likely result in renewed attention to growth management and land use law, and our relatively light load on these issues will be short lived.

Land use & planning bills

Environment & natural resources bills