 VOLUME XVIII, ISSUE 7 DECEMBER 2005
|
|
|
|
Growth Management Services within the Department of Community, Trade and
Economic Development (CTED) in conjunction with the state Department of
Archaeology and Historic Preservation (DAHP), is pleased to announce the
availability of the revised document Historic Preservation: A Tool for
Managing Growth.
The guidebook was initially written in 1995 to provide
direction for local jurisdictions interested in incorporating historic
preservation in growth management planning documents. Ten years later, both
Growth Management Services and DAHP recognized the need to update the guide
with an eye toward meeting related objectives in the state historic
preservation plan.
Fortunately, University of Minnesota planning and public
policy student Diane Wiatr of Olympia, interned with the agencies in 2004 to
review the document and revise and expand where needed. The revision include
updated information on funding sources, a glossary of terms, an updated list
of Certified Local Governments, plus a revised model for drafting a historic
preservation plan.
A copy of the document can be downloaded from DAHP's
website at www.dahp.wa.gov then follow the "Documents/Forms" link to obtain
the document.
WRAPPING UP 2005, AND GETTING READY FOR AN EXCITING NEW YEAR! This year’s Annual Fall Conference, which was held in Bellevue, was a smashing success. Over 600 people attended and enjoyed the many informative sessions, interesting mobile workshops, and notable keynote speakers. I would like to thank the following people for doing such a great job in organizing the conference: Conference Co-Chairs Eric Shields and Dan Stroh; Program Co-Chairs Roberta Lewandowski and Kevin McDonald; Host Committee Chair Kris Liljeblad; Sponsorship Chair Michael Booth; and Joanie Pop and the rest of the conference management team at Event Dynamics, Inc.
Thanks also go to our membership for its generosity towards the victims of Hurricane Katrina. This disaster had a devastating effect on so many people, including our fellow and sister planners. In response to a request by the Washington Chapter’s Board of Directors, over $1,875 was contributed by our members during the November 1 Business Meeting. This money will be sent to the APA Foundation, and used to provide direct assistance to Louisiana and Alabama planners to help them get their Planning Departments up and running again. Way to go, Washington planners!
A few people received special recognition at the Fall Conference. The President’s Award, which recognizes persons who have made outstanding contributions to the Washington Chapter, was awarded to Michael Kattermann (AHBL), WAPA’s Immediate Past President, and Michael Ryherd, our organization’s first lobbyist. Nancy Ousley (WA Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development) received this year’s Meyer Wolfe Award, which is given to recognize great achievement to the planning profession. The Barbara Grace Award, which is given to a mid-level planner who exemplifies the qualities of an excellent planner and provides great customer service, was presented to Karen Wolf (King County). Finally, State Senator Jim Kastama and State Representative Geoff Simpson received WAPA’s Legislator of the Year Awards for their good work on planning-related legislative issues.
The Conference Reception included not only good food and company, but a trivia contest. I am happy to report that the winner of that contest is Will Hall, who won a free registration to the 2006 Fall conference.
On a final conference note, please note that next year’s conference will take place October 4-6, 2006, in Yakima. Be sure to mark your calendar now!
Regarding legislative matters, WAPA has been actively involved in commenting on Governor Christine Gregoire’s land use legislative proposals. Several of us, including Brad Collins, Shane Hope, and Mike McCormick, participated in a work session on the first set of proposals in Olympia during the first week of October. This was followed up with an in-depth discussion with key State staff on the “second draft’ proposals in early November. The third and final drafts will be unveiled in mid-December of this year. We will continue to be actively engaged with helping to shape the final versions of the Governor’s land use-related legislative proposals. It is expected that these proposals will be discussed during the 2006 Legislative Session, which will be closely monitored by our Legislative Committee.
Looking ahead to the upcoming year, it is very likely that our major focus will be opposing a “so called property rights” initiative that we expect to be filed in early January, 2006. Such an initiative in Washington State would have a devastating effect on property values and our quality of life. Stay tuned.
In 2006, WAPA will be providing several continuing education opportunities, with two workshops already in the works regarding “How to Conduct a Successful Charrette” and “Effective Communications on Key Planning Issues.” We are also planning to undertake a second “Community Planning Assistance Program” project (the first one having been a successful effort for the City of Sultan). In addition, we will also be establishing a “Kids and Planning” program, by which we provide information to, and interact with, students (future planners and customers). If you are interested in helping out any of these efforts, please contact me.
I hope you are ready for an exciting new year. Happy holidays!
2006 WA-APA Legislative Agenda
As the new lobbyist for the WA-APA I have been asked to provide some definitive insight into the 2006 legislative session. I’ve been a lobbyist for over a decade, and prior to that, a senate counsel for three years. I’ve worked with three different Governors, with Democrat legislative majorities, with Republican legislative majorities, and with dual majorities. Thus, given the myriad of experience gleaned from those thirteen legislative sessions, I can confidently state, with complete certainty, that I really have no idea what the 2006 legislative session will entail. That said I will make two unqualified statements concerning the 2006 session.
First, the session will last sixty days – at least the regular session - of that I am absolutely certain because the State Constitution mandates it. Whether a special session occurs, I am less certain. The State is not facing a budget crisis, unlike the last four years, so the legislature should adjourn on time without the need of special sessions. Further, state revenue projections show about a billion dollars of additional revenue - indicative of a better-than-anticipated economy.
Yet, the November election may undo the State’s transportation budget, and the State’s pension costs (long ignored due to past budget woes) must be addressed. Also, hurricane Katrina and the threat of a pandemic have highlighted the state’s need to address emergency management, and dealing with sex offenders in our communities continues to be a legislative concern. Accordingly, whether the 2006 legislature goes home at the end of the sixty days is problematic.
My second prediction is more definitive: the WA-APA will be deeply involved in key issues all session. The Governor’s office has spent the last several months working on a package of land use bills. Currently, the WA-APA and other stakeholders are ruminating over the latest versions of these bills – now up to seven separate bill drafts dealing with GMA timelines, best-available-science definitions, GMA hearing board consolidation, eminent domain powers, critical areas, and agricultural accessory uses.
I have heard that consensus is not mandatory for these land use bills to proceed. While that is a bold approach (and pragmatic given there is not consensus among the local government, private sector, and environmental communities at this juncture), it entails tense committee hearings and tough votes with the entire House of Representatives up for election in one year. With the specter of an Oregon-style property rights initiative casting a shadow over the proceedings, this is a Herculean exercise that, as noted earlier, must be completed within sixty days. While it might end in a stalemate, it could produce substantial changes to land use planning in the State.
If it is true that chaos breeds opportunity, then the WA-APA should have numerous chances to succeed during the 2006 session. It is an exciting time to be the lobbyist for the WA-APA. Although I hesitate to make predictions, I look forward to working with you as we discover what the 2006 session will produce.
BE PART OF APA IN ACTION: JOIN THE LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE
During the past year the Legislative Committee increased its activities on behalf of the Chapter in the arenas of advocacy, education, and outreach. In addition to its traditional role of reviewing pending legislation with the guidance of the Chapter’s long-time lobbyist Mike Ryherd, members of the Committee worked on the issues set forth in the updated Legislative Platform, began implementation of the Strategic Plan, continued collaboration among stakeholders via the GMA Working Group, debriefed the 2005 Session with legislative staff, met with the Governor’s staff to provide resources and information relative to the Governor’s Land Use Agenda, and gave presentations at various workshops and conferences for planners and the public.
The coming year promises to provide continued opportunities for the membership to be involved in legislative issues. With Mike Ryherd’s decision to step down as the Chapter’s lobbyist in order to focus on specific issues for fewer clients, the Board approved hiring a full-time lobbyist following a recruiting process headed up by Legislative Co-Chair Ivan Miller, Mike McCormick, and Steve Butler. The Chapter’s new lobbyist, Michael Shaw, began work in October of 2005 and met many of you at the recent Annual Conference in Bellevue. His first of several articles on legislative issues appears in this newsletter, and we all welcome Mike.
The Legislative Committee plans to continue its review of pending legislation with emails and weekly meetings via conference call beginning in January of 2006. During the five active months from January through May of 2005, there were approximately 30 individuals on the email list receiving information on the pending legislation. The conference calls had 6 to 15 participants each week, and approximately 115 bills were reviewed with 18 members participating in reviewing bills and writing up a review of the pending legislation. In addition, approximately 15 bills were reviewed a second or third time as amendments were added and changes made to the bills by one house or the other. Approximately 10 bills were in a “watch and see what happens” mode because they were of interest to WA APA but may have had adequate support from other groups or potentially could have amendments that would be of interest to WA APA.
Following review of the legislation by the members of the Legislative Committee and a summary provided weekly of these reviews by Legislative Co-Chairs Esther Larsen and Ivan Miller, alternating weeks, a Legislative Committee recommendation was set forth based on the reviews and comments on those reviews. In cases where there was clear support or opposition to bills, the recommendation was either to support or to oppose. In cases with no clear consensus and/or great diversity in opinions, no Legislative Committee recommendation was set forth. In cases with bills that could be supported with changes, suggestions were made regarding changes in the bill language or other issues, and where appropriate, a Legislative Committee recommendation was set forth.
Each week the summary of the reviews and recommendations were sent to the Legislative Committee and to Mike Kattermann and/or Steve Butler in their roles as Chapter President and President-Elect to compile position statements to send to the Legislature directed to the Chair and members of the Committee in the House or Senate that was planning a hearing or other action on the pending legislation. Fifty-six position statements were sent to the Legislature. Of those, 7 were restating the position following amendments to the original legislation, and 1 was a change in position due to a change in the legislation. Thus, position statements were sent on 48 different bills.
Beginning with the June meeting of the Governor’s Staff and members of the Legislative Committee and Executive Committee, the Chapter’s recommendations regarding the Governor’s Land Use Agenda have been discussed and are continuing to evolve. Information regarding the draft bills is available via CTED’s webpage at www.cted.wa.gov. You may contact Karen Berkholtz, Special Projects Coordinator at kberkholtz@cted.wa.gov or at (360) 725-3065 for details. A ListServ is available via http://listserv.wa.gov/archives/landuse.html.
The 2006 Legislative Session will be short; however, it will be busy and involve issues vital to planning and planners. The Chapter needs your participation in this process. You can be part of APA in action by joining the Legislative Committee and participating in a variety of ways from reviewing legislation to meeting with your local legislators to writing position recommendations to testifying before the Legislature. Contact either of the Co-Chairs to get involved in this important work for the Chapter. Contact information:
WA-APA Leg Committee: http://www.washington-apa.org/aWAapa/lCommittee.shtml.
The Bill Review Process and Timeline as well as the Legislative Platform and Strategic Plan are available on the Chapter webpage at www.washington-apa.org. The Legislative Committee will continue to update the webpage with information, including the Chapter’s position statements on the Governor’s Land Use Agenda, as well as other issues, as they are developed.
GMA MAKES SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION TO STATE IN ITS FIRST 15 YEARS Fifteen years ago, when a statewide debate was occurring about what kind of growth management program should be adopted in Washington, planners were there to help shape the system.
To mark the 15th Anniversary of the state’s Growth Management Act (GMA) in 2005, staff of the Washington State Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development (CTED) interviewed 16 legislators, planners, and others. Those interviewed were among the unique group of state leaders that came together to pass the 1990 GMA, which was amended in 1991 with details on how it would be carried out.
“Prior to the Growth Management Act, the practice of planning in Washington was largely an exercise in policies to accompany the zoning map and zoning permit,” said Joe Tovar, FAICP, planner and former member of the Central Puget Sound Growth Management Board, in his CTED oral history interview. “In 1989, the city planning directors and the county planning directors gathered at a placed called Crescent Bar in Central Washington. The focus of that conference was: What should a new growth law for our state look like?
“At the end of three days of thrashing these things around by city and county planning directors from all parts of the state – Walla Walla, Spokane, the coast, Seattle metro region – we pretty much began to find agreement,” Tovar said. “We accomplished this even though the city and county planning directors organizations were affiliates of our respective city and county organizations. The fact that the planners were able to find common ground made it much easier, I think, for our parent organizations to begin finding common ground as well.”
A report, “Toward a Growth Strategy for Washington,” was prepared.
The report had a lot of credibility with people because it was the product of planners who were the practitioners of the planning statutes, as they existed, Tovar said. “I think we were able to speak with a certain amount of credibility about what worked – why it worked and what didn’t work and some ideas about how to make it work better.”
Mary McCumber – planner and former executive director of the Puget Sound Regional Council – had worked with Tovar, Roberta Lewandowski, and Harold Robertson on the Crescent Bar meeting. Then she was appointed executive director of the Growth Strategies Commission.
The Growth Strategies Commission was appointed quickly, said McCumber in her CTED oral history interview. “They expected the commission to be completed [with its work] within a year, and with limited resources. And then because of a lot of the pressure to move sooner, the speaker of the House decided it would be wise to go ahead and get the first wave of growth management done at the very same time the commission got initial agreement on what should be done.
“I think we did a much better job because of the incredible pressure to act,” said McCumber. “It was the right moment and the right set of people and we got a great piece of legislation that I would have bet a lot of money that we never would have gotten… It was very fun. It was very intense.”
Tom Campbell – a planner by training who worked as the policy advisor for Joe King, speaker of the Washington State House of Representatives – said in his CTED oral history interview that he brought together a lot of the interests and constraints to make the GMA into a viable and working law.
Campbell tells the story about how he and the speaker were stuck in a traffic jam on I-405 one day in 1989. The speaker asked, “Look at those apartment buildings going up, who’s responsible for those?” Campbell said he replied that no one was locally or even regionally responsible for growth and land use and tying it to transportation dollars.
“We were under a significant amount of pressure by a broad coalition of labor and business interests to pass the gas tax at that time,” Campbell said. He told the speaker, “So, if you really want to make a difference in spending our infrastructure dollars on transportation, you have to have growth management.”
That sparked the plan that they developed to link a growth management law to the passage of the gas tax, Campbell said. No act was passed in 1989.
In 1990, growth management legislation was introduced and then divided into subject areas in six House committees. Busse Nutley, a planner, was chair of the Housing Committee. She and the other committee chairs, Ruth Fischer, Mary Margaret Haugen, Nancy Rust, Maria Cantwell, and Jennifer Belcher, became known as the Steel Magnolias.
“I had the job of shepherding all of the six components and bringing those pieces together so we did have a coherent Growth Management Act,” said Campbell. “The Steel Magnolias would have meetings on a regular basis to evaluate the integration of the parts and served as a kind of ‘committee of the whole.’”
The Senate was not very interested in growth management, Campbell said. When the House sent a bill to them, Joe King put Maria Cantwell more in the lead and Busse Nutley was assigned to the conference committee.
The GMA was passed and immediately challenged by Initiative 547, sponsored by interest groups who didn’t think the GMA went far enough. The initiative was defeated when key legislative leaders made a commitment to re-visit enforcement of the GMA. In 1991, the enforcement piece of the act was passed.
Mike McCormick, FAICP, who was the first CTED administrator of the GMA, said in his CTED oral history interview that the most important parts of the GMA are the parts that require local government to get together and coordinate. “I thought that was pure magic, the way it worked in the first go-around… In a lot of places there is a history of working together now that was started, or restarted, in a significant way in the early 1990s as a result of growth management.” McCormick also thinks that urban growth area planning and concurrency, which provides truth in planning and budgeting, are important growth management components.
Today, Washington is one of only 13 states that have passed statewide growth management programs.
A 15th Anniversary Report on the GMA is being prepared by CTED. It will include the history of the act as told in the oral history interviews and information on how growth management is working today in local communities. To gather current information, local governments and state leaders have written short articles about the single, most important way that the GMA is helping their community or organization reach its goals and vision for the future. Highlights from these articles will be offered in the report and appeared in the fall 2005 issue of CTED’s quarterly newsletter, About Growth. See www.cted.wa.gov/growth for a copy of the newsletter.
In 15 years, growth management planning has made tremendous progress in the state.
In his interview with CTED, Tovar listed the successes of the GMA:
Communities are making tough decisions on the best ways to grow. Although many challenges remain, growth management is working and making a difference in the lives of the citizens of Washington.
Puget Sound Section
Thursday, December 15th from 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Same location as last year, the World Trade Center West Building
For directions and parking information: http://www.wtcseattle.com/directions.aspx?SecID=122 Suggest this year's recipient of the 3rd Annual PSS Section Service Award by contacting Section President, Paul Krauss at (253) 931-3090 or pkrauss@ci.auburn.wa.us. Michelle Whitfield, PSS Section Newsletter Editor
This in response to the article in the October 2005 edition of Planning Northwest, The Tyranny of the Urban Majority, written by Richard Carson. The planner at the public meeting was incorrect to use McMansions as he did and for the author to use them to simplify the smart growth movement as a war against the upper class was erroneous. McMansion does not equal rich people plus McDonalds. The term McMansions is used as a reflection of the need people feel to have everything “supersized”: their car, their drinks, their French fries, and their homes. It is a symptom of the massive need for consumption beyond our basic needs. McMansions are not marketed nor are they sold exclusively to the “rich”. They have become an icon of the middle class and have replaced the house with the two car garage, 3 bedrooms and white picket fence with a four car garage, six bedrooms and a stone fortress. McMansions are also not exclusive to the suburbs and have begun to create serious issues as they are forced into existing, urban centers. The term sprawl can mean different things to different people. There are definitely class issues with sprawl along with both ethnic and environmental issues, but it is not simply us against the “rich.” The author made the argument that people living in urban areas need to pay for their “unconscionable urban appetites.” Since 80% of the country’s population resides in metropolitan areas, can’t we assume that the majority of taxpayers also reside in these areas? Between 1995 and 2003 American taxpayers paid $130 billion dollars in farm subsidies. Last year alone $144 million went to administer the country’s national grazing program. The list goes on, and on, and on. It is hypocritical to complain about people living in urban areas and all of the things they have done wrong, when those who claim to be “living off of the land” use and benefit from those services and businesses within urban areas. Jennifer Campos, Associate Planner, City of Vancouver
Monthly Newsletter Have a project you want to highlight for planners across the state? An issue you think more planners need information on? Planning Northwest is always looking to highlight projects and research of our members. If you are interested in having an article published feel free to contact the editor. Upcoming issues will focus on tribal planning, emergency management/planning, annexations, state legislative agenda, and transportation. In January a detailed month by month topic list will be on the chapter listserv and in the newsletter. The deadline for the newsletter is the first of every month. Please submit all newsletter articles to Angela Brooks, AICP at angela.brooks@seattle.gov and angeladiane@gmail.com. Please include Planning Northwest in your subject line. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|