By: Tim Trohimovich, Guest to the Snoqualmie Valley Record, December 01,
2004
It is definitely time to take a closer look at King County's new Critical Areas
Ordinance (CAO). We need to look beyond the controversy and rhetoric and
examine who and what it protects, and why.
If you think that we live in a dog-eat-dog world and that everyone should be
able to do anything they want on their property - no matter what - then you can
probably afford to skip a thoughtful review of the CAO. But if you think that
we live in communities where we have a responsibility to be fair to our
neighbors, and that it might make sense for communities to establish rules that
protect things like drinking water, public health and our rural quality of
life, then you owe it to yourself to take a closer look at the CAO. And if you
are concerned about taxes and property values then you really need to take a
closer look, because all of the available evidence indicates that over time the
new rules should protect property values and reduce taxes.
The CAO has as three of its most important goals to: (1) Protect water
supplies; (2) Protect property owners from flooding, landslides and other
hazards; and (3) Keep our rural areas rural. Each of these is very important.
Continuing development is threatening the ground water supplies many depend on
for drinking water and irrigation (30 percent of King County residents rely on
wells for their drinking water). Rural residents in King County have seen
runoff from nearby clear cuts damage their access roads and flood their home
sites. Farmers in the Snoqualmie and other valleys continue to struggle with
problems created by increased runoff as the hills above them are developed.
Although these are important goals, the rules that aim to achieve them must be
balanced against people's rights to use their land. And they must be flexible
enough to accommodate individual needs and special circumstances.
The good news is that the CAO is flexible and has been improved in response to
public comment to accommodate rural lifestyles and needs. Maintaining rural
areas, farms and forests also means maintaining people's ability to use their
land. The critical areas provisions include flexible provisions to ensure that
everyone can build on their land. They do not change the zoning of properties
or the number of houses people are allowed to build. In fact, the update
increased the land that can be used to calculate how many homes are allowed.
The new CAO also makes life simpler for farmers and horse owners in important
ways. With an approved farm plan, a county permit is no longer required to
clean existing agricultural ditches. This will make life simpler for farmers,
and eliminates a frustrating regulation. The standard buffers do not apply to
existing farms and horse operations. Permit costs for large agricultural
buildings, such as stables and barns, have been lowered. The CAO also gives
rural residents, farmers and foresters the option of creating a customized plan
for their land as an alternative to the standard regulations. This plan can be
customized to the land owner's goals and the conditions on the ground while
meeting the goals of protecting the environment and the neighbors. For farmers
and horse owners, the farm plans are free and approved by the land owner and
the King Conservation District, a state agency.
The CAO includes flexible provisions that apply within the urban growth area,
too. Like in the rural area, the new update allows all of a lot to be used in
calculating the number of homes that can be built. Flexible lot standards allow
builders to achieve the same number of homes with the new standards as before.
Undoubtedly, the most controversial provisions of the new CAO are the clearing
allowances for rural areas. The CAO does limit people's ability to permanently
clear cut their lots. The simple truth is that trees and ground cover collect
tremendous amounts of water - recharging wells and aquifers, filtering out
pollutants and preventing floods and landslides. We have learned the hard way
that when we permanently cut down too many trees, it creates serious health and
safety problems.
But once again, the new rules are flexible. They are designed to ensure that
people can harvest timber, cut fire wood, keep horses, raise crops, clear brush
to prevent fires, remove blackberries and weeds and cut down trees that are
hazards to homes and buildings. The clearing allowances were increased for
smaller lots to ensure that people can raise horses. Small lots are not
required to count clearing for utilities, access roads or septic systems toward
their 50-percent clearing allowance. Existing lots that have legally cleared
more than 35 percent can keep the existing cleared area; there is no
requirement to replant it. The clearing allowances do not affect people's
ability to build homes on their rural properties.
The CAO is good for our pocketbooks as well. The evidence is very clear, both
in terms of property values and taxes. In the Bear Creek area near Redmond,
where clearing allowances have been in place for a decade, property values have
increased significantly. Additionally, landowners who participate in the
county's rural stewardship program are entitled to tax breaks for land left in
native vegetation.
But the real tax savings are in the longer run. Wetlands and forests clean
water, recharge aquifers and prevent floods and landslides much more cheaply
and effectively than treatment plants and storm water detention ponds. If we do
not protect our wetlands and forests, we will spend untold millions of our tax
dollars on infrastructure that attempts - often unsuccessfully - to do the same
job. You can see this in the costly storm drainage improvements that are built
in the urban growth area as it develops. These systems are designed to reduce
some of the damage that would otherwise be done to downstream property owners.
And if we build large scale water, sewer and storm water facilities in the
rural area, it will be followed by large scale new development soon thereafter.
Without adequate protections badly planned growth will destroy our rural areas,
farms and forests. Forever.
The common sense benefits of CAO protections are so important that the county
is legally required to adopt them. The state Legislature directed cities and
counties to do this work to keep our water clean and to ensure we respond to
new scientific information about threats to public health and the environment.
In closing, it's important to make sure that all the controversy over the new
CAO doesn't cause us to lose sight of the shared values that are its
foundation. As a community we value things like clean water, public health and
safety and our rural quality of life, and we have a responsibility to protect
them. The CAO uses flexible tools that have already worked successfully in parts
of King County for over 10 years to provide those protections - tools that have
protected property values and helped avoid tax increases as well.
The bottom line is that there's a reason it's called the Critical Areas
Ordinance: it protects things that are critically important to our well-being.
We will all be better off because of it.
Tim Trohimovich is the director of planning for 1000 Friends of Washington.