Planning for your city’s future with the GMA.

Most cities around the state are embarking on, or about to embark on, an exercise that might sound dry and boring to the uninitiated: the required periodic update to the city’s comprehensive growth management plan. Planning under the Growth Management Act (GMA) is a crucial process that sets a city’s future course and helps answer not only basic questions that face each community, but also a profound one—how and where will we grow? More importantly, it ensures that the public is empowered to help shape that growth, address its impacts, and engage in the overall work of becoming a vibrant and thriving city.

The legislature enacted the GMA in response to concerns that “uncoordinated and unplanned growth, together with a lack of common goals expressing the public’s interest in the conservation and wise use of our lands, pose a threat to the environment, sustainable economic development, and the health, safety, and high quality of life enjoyed by the residents of this state.”

Washingtonians value the natural beauty of the land that surrounds us all. How do we maintain and enhance our natural environment while accommodating more people into our cities? How can we support economic opportunity for all residents? How do we ensure that growth is carefully planned so that we preserve our natural areas while making it cost-effective to provide essential services? Will the families that move here have parks to play in and shade trees to sit under?

Contrary to the planning in some other states, Washington’s growth planning is designed to be bottom-up—originating from within the community—rather than top-down from the state. The framework identifies the categories jurisdictions must consider (e.g., housing, transportation, and climate) and creates a responsibility for cities to seek public input about how to meet the goals of the GMA. This contrasts with other states, where both the “what” and the “how” of planning are dictated by the state.

It's not just about the many difficult decisions that your city will make as it goes through the planning process. It’s also about ensuring transparency and working with residents to influence those decisions.

By creating a comprehensive and bottom-up planning framework, Washington set the stage for regular, lively discussions about how to envision and prepare for the future. It is these community conversations that provide the means to balance many competing priorities. Perhaps it reflects Washington’s history of decentralized decision-making, having been founded at a time when the national influence of railroad tycoons and other robber barons was top of mind for the framers of Washington’s constitution. Whatever the motivation, the state’s planning process insists on a prominent role for community input—including “early and continuous public participation.”

A fundamental underpinning of good planning is to start with data, including realistic forecasts, and then use that data as a foundation to build a city’s vision, goals, and policies. For instance, based on state demographic projections and regional negotiations, a city might be projected to grow by 15 percent over the next 20 years. The GMA provides tools to help the community consider where that growth might occur; how to accommodate new residents into existing neighborhoods; what infrastructure and transportation improvements will be needed to allow those residents to walk, bike, and drive to where they need to go; and how to pay for all these changes to the built environment. Is there adequate water and sewer service to an area? Are there physical characteristics to consider that will increase infrastructure costs? Are there other parts of the city where growth could be incentivized to reduce the costs of services or contribute other benefits?

In recent years, the state has provided even more detailed goals and instructions about accounting for the housing needs of city residents now and into the future. What decisions will need to be made in your city to ensure the accommodation of people from all income levels? How can each city be welcoming and facilitate housing for those who can afford market-rate housing, but also for those who cannot?

Most importantly, it’s not just about the many difficult decisions that your city will make as it goes through the planning process. It’s also about ensuring transparency and working with residents to influence those decisions. After all, they will live with the results.

Finally, at the conclusion of this process, all these interrelated decisions need to be internally consistent and work together across the region, and the vision needs to be specific enough to implement.

Creating the future blueprint for your city is not easy. But rest assured, you are in good company. Cities across the state continue to develop and share new tools and strategies to perfect this balancing act. Whether you are new to this process or a seasoned elected official, don’t forget to lean on the experience of your peers around the state.