To leave no stone unturned in their mission to address housing affordability and supply, the Legislature turns to bills that would in one form or another provide additional urban land for development or allow more urban levels of development in limited areas of counties.

Annexation

First up is a great proposal from Rep. April Berg (D–Mill Creek) to re-institute the annexation sales tax credit to provide resources to facilitate and incentivize annexations. HB 1425 applies to all cities and counties and is triggered by an inter-local agreement between a city and county.

Cities can receive a 1/10th of one percent sales tax credit for annexations of more than 2,000 in population but less than 10,000. Cities can receive a 2/10th of one percent sales tax credit for annexations of more than 10,000 in population.

All revenue collected under this sales tax credit may only be used to provide, maintain, and operate municipal services for the annexation area.

Urban Growth Area expansion

Rep. Cindy Jacobsen (R–Puyallup) has an interesting new take on how to consider urban growth area (UGA) expansion. HB 1402 is premised on the reality that property owners control whether and how their property is developed. It declares that if there are properties within the existing UGA that are in flood plains or remain undeveloped or underdeveloped after twenty years, the county may assume that those properties or areas will not be developed as expected. They may expand the urban growth boundary to include more buildable land to satisfy the projected need. The proposal then goes further to preclude the growth management hearings board from hearing petitions regarding compliance or validity of these expansions.

Dates to remember

HB 1425 and HB 1402 are scheduled for public hearing in the House Local Government Committee on Wednesday, February 1 at 8 am.