Clark County may not be able to submit its 20-year growth plan to the state on time if it continues to pursue the latest iteration of Councilor David Madore’s zoning plan, according to a report from Clark County Community Planning.
Pursuing the latest version of Alternative 4, a zoning map Madore created for the Clark County Comprehensive Growth Management Plan update without staff input, could “jeopardize the county’s ability to meet its deadline,” according to a staff report released Monday. That will leave the county out of compliance with the state’s Growth Management Act, making it ineligible for state grants and funding.
The release of the report comes a week before the Clark County council is slated to reconsider its preferred alternative — which includes Alternative 4 and portions from the three staff-created alternatives — on Feb. 16.
Next week’s meeting could represent the end of an ongoing and often dramatic saga surrounding Clark County’s comprehensive plan zoning component.
Public Meeting: Clark County council
What: Clark County council meeting to revisit the zoning component of its Comprehensive Growth Management Plan.
Where: Public Service Center, 1300 Franklin St., Vancouver.
When: 10 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 16.
For more information: Clark.wa.gov/thegrid
In one corner is Clark County Citizens United, which claims to represent the views of thousands of rural property owners. The organization — led by its two most vocal members, President Susan Rasmussen and Executive Secretary Carol Levanen — has been fighting for Alternative 4, saying the zoning plan would restore rural property rights to landowners whose property has been locked in large lot sizes for decades.
But critics of the plan — including land use attorneys, some rural farmers, conservation groups and Clark County’s cities — have decried the proposal as having too great an environmental impact on rural areas.
Clark County must complete its Comprehensive Growth Management Plan update by April 30 to submit it to the state Department of Commerce.
Madore, whose efforts have been praised by Rasmussen and Levanen, has dominated the comprehensive plan process for about a year. He introduced two versions of his Alternative 4, which would allow for smaller lots than currently permitted in rural areas. He’s also written his own planning assumptions, which determine what lots are likely to have a home put on them, to support that alternative. Half of those eight assumptions were deemed invalid by independent consulting firm R.W. Thorpe and Associates. Email records show Madore selected the Mercer Island-based firm on his own to analyze the assumptions, and last year, a majority of the then- three-member council approved a $45,000 contract with the company without accepting bids.
Correction: In a staff report, Clark County Community Planning said the county may not submit its 20-year growth plan to the state on time if it pursues the latest version of Alternative 4. Continuing to move forward with that plan could “jeopardize” the county’s ability to meet its deadline. An earlier version of this story implied otherwise.
