Growth Management (Act!)

Shoreline is required by the Growth Management Act to add 2651 new residential units by 2022. So? We could do that without half trying. Ah, but it'll work and look a whole lot better if we DO try. We have a Comprehensive Plan, just updated, which is intended to guide our growth, and that's a good thing, because in spite of all the whining and fearful blather about "density" growth will happen here, and it should.

 We are a city. We incorporated in 1995, and while that gave us better control over parts of our governance it came with responsibilities. We must tax ourselves to provide the services and infrastructure we want, we must participate both electorally and personally in our municipal proceedings, and we must increase our density. I can just hear some doing a Luke Skywalker-esque NOOOOOOOO!!!

Sprawl, our status quo and primary heritage here in Shoreline/LFP, is not an acceptable alternative, irrespective of LFP’s founding declarations. Its effects are bad and unsustainable, as summarized on the WA Department of Commerce website:

“The Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board concludes that there are at least eight major negative consequences of sprawl:

(1) It needlessly destroys the economic, environmental, and aesthetic value of resource lands.

(2) It creates an inefficient land use pattern that is very expensive to serve with public funds.

(3) It blurs local government roles, fueling competition, redundancy, and conflict among those governments.

(4) It threatens economic viability by diffusing rather than focusing needed public infrastructure investments.

(5) It abandons established urban areas where substantial past investments, both public and private, have been made.

(6) It encourages insular and parochial local policies that thwart the siting of needed regional facilities and the equitable accommodation of locally unpopular land uses.

(7) It destroys the intrinsic visual character of the landscape.

(8) It erodes a sense of community, which, in turn, has dire social consequences.”
 
Some people are of the opinion that as a city we can weasel our way out of our duty and regulate away any higher density, but that’s false.

Here, for the record, is part of the law (my italics):

       RCW 36.70A.020

       Planning goals.

The following goals are adopted to guide the development and adoption of comprehensive plans and development regulations of those counties and cities that are required or choose to plan under RCW 36.70A.040. The following goals are not listed in order of priority and shall be used exclusively for the purpose of guiding the development of comprehensive plans and development regulations:

     (1) Urban growth. Encourage development in urban areas where adequate public facilities and services exist or can be provided in an efficient manner.

     (2) Reduce sprawl. Reduce the inappropriate conversion of undeveloped land into sprawling, low-density development.

     (3) Transportation. Encourage efficient multimodal transportation systems that are based on regional priorities and coordinated with county and city comprehensive plans.

     (4) Housing. Encourage the availability of affordable housing to all economic segments of the population of this state, promote a variety of residential densities and housing types, and encourage preservation of existing housing stock.

     (5), (6), (7) …

     (8) Natural resource industries. Maintain and enhance natural resource-based industries, including productive timber, agricultural, and fisheries industries. Encourage the conservation of productive forest lands and productive agricultural lands, and discourage incompatible uses.

     (9), (10), (11), (12), (13) …

As an incorporated place we must take growth at least proportionate to our size. That is, if the region is expecting 936,000 more people by 2030, as projected in the GMA 2007 report, we must make space for them all in existing cities (except those who come specifically for rural purposes- a farmer must live on her farm, after all) and therefore we need to take every opportunity to accommodate them.

Seattle’s population (2010 census) is 608,660, Tacoma’s is 198,397, Bellevue’s is 122,363, and Everett’s is 103,019. These are the four largest cities in the region.  Larger cities have a much greater ability to absorb more people and can do so with much greater energy, administrative and material efficiency. Their resulting neighborhoods will be as stronger as a result. The smallest cities, by contrast, have little ability to act directly. Perhaps they could rezone spaces, but they have little budgetary wiggle-room.

One can imagine an equation wherein for each city you just plug in its population and it cranks out an ‘account for this much growth’ number. Maybe a small town like Algona (.14 % of total incorporated population) would  come out as .5, so would have to accommodate only 655 new people, while Shoreline (10^th largest city in the area by population, 2.46% of total) would come out at 1.0, and take 22,999 new residents.  That’s a whole lot more than the 2651 units we’re signed on for now, but my number is people, not households, and assumes no more building permits would be issued for unincorporated areas (A vain hope, I know. Currently about 1/3 of building permits in King County are still issued for exurban areas, and I haven’t found out how many are issued in unincorporated areas within the ‘Urban Growth Boundary’.)

Seattle, at the highest end of the scale (28.21% of total), would come out as, say, 2.0, so would have to accommodate 528,091 new people- a heck of a lot, but easier for them than for any smaller government. Their Urban Village strategy is succeeding- 80% of new housing is in Urban Villages and the city is growing fast, but needs to be strengthened to truly realize the potential of the concept. I’d like to see them raise building heights, reduce parking requirements, smooth permitting, and the like, even while clamping further down on development outside Urban Village boundaries.

More to the point, I’d like to see us do it, too.