Nerditorial: A Lump of Coal in the County Council's Stocking from the GMHB.

Well, Humbug.

The Growth Management Hearings Board has just filed a Determination of Invalidity of Whatcom County's LAMIRD Criteria. This was initially posted here.


And you are probably thinking, "Wow... The County's LAMIRD Criteria are invalidated. Incredible. That is amazing. And more to the point... what is a LAMIRD?"

A LAMIRD is an acronym for

Limited
Area of
More
Intense
Rural
Development

And after reading that, you are probably thinking, "Oh, I see where this is going. Yeah, that's helpful... but, no, really what is a LAMIRD?"

A LAMIRD is... um... well, it looks like a part of a city, but it doesn't appear inside of any actual current city limits nor is it slated to be annexed by any city or town.

See, there are only two general places where there is supposed to be cityscape in Whatcom County.

1. Inside the limits of an incorporated city or town.
2. Inside of the so-called Urban Growth Area that is adjacent to one of those cities or towns.

Everything else in the county is supposed to be rural.

And this is where LAMIRDS come in.

There are a meaningful number of urban-y areas of development in Whatcom County and many other Washington counties that pre-date the GMA and fall outside of these two general areas. These pre-existing levels of urban-y goodness have been given the appropriately awkward acronym of LAMIRD. They can't be called urban areas, because they are zoned rural, but they sure don't walk, quack or swim like rural areas, either. Kinda awkward. So, they are rural areas that are "intensely developed".

So, one of the burdens of counties that are expected to be GMA-compliant (such as Whatcom County) is to reconcile the existence of these intensely developed rural areas with the County's mandate to comply with the GMA and its 14 random wandering goals.

The details of how to achieve the manifold goals of the GMA are generally left to the counties. But when there is disagreement over what constitutes a LAMIRD, then the Growth Management Hearings Board is supposed to step in and clarify the matter.

So Whatcom County is supposed to clarify what constitutes a LAMIRD, so that "more intensive rural development" (which bears an uncanny resemblance to urban development, but you didn't hear it from me...) can be allowed to occur in a manner that will not undermine the county's ability to comply with the GMA while still protecting the property rights of those property owners who bought the land before the GMA kicked in.

Now, if this doesn't sound easy, that means you are paying attention. Because it isn't. The solutions advocated by the stakeholders in the County range widely and incompatibly. On one extreme is the school of thought that the entire rural portion of Whatcom County can be declared one big-ass LAMIRD. On the other extreme is the school of though that the entire rural portion of Whatcom County can be placed in a development moratorium. And as you might imagine, neither faction at these polar opposite ends are inclined to budge, each thinking they are being entirely reasonable.

Goody.

So, the County has the dubious honor of basically deciding which stakeholder they want to be sued by more.

And Whatcom County has chosen... Futurewise.

Why? Because when Futurewise barbecues the County's ass and then hands it to them on a stick, the ass is more savory and flavorful than when CAITAC or Trillium barbecues their ass, I guess.

And on December 22, 2010, another hunk of County ass was presented to it on a skewer. The County might want to select a nice dipping sauce.

The Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board had blunt words for Whatcom County's LAMIRD criteria.

... there appears to be no dispute that the County has allowed subdivision "in and around" its LAMIRDs in the absence of compliant GMA criteria fo the designation of LAMIRDs.

...more blunt words...

... The County ought not to be allowing development within "recommended" LAMIRDs until it has adopted LAMIRD criteria found to comply with the Act.

and then throws this haymaker...

... the Board finds and concludes that the continued validity of designation criteria in the description for small towns and crossroads communities, crossroad commercial, resort, and recreational subdivisions, suburban enclaves, and transportation corridors and Policy 2GG-2 promote the inappropriate conversion of undeveloped land into sprawling low density development and substantially interfere with the fulfillment of goal 2 of the GMA, RCW 36.70A.020(2) and are therefore invalid.

The GMHB did grant the County an extension of time to complete its already tardy work on the "rural element".

In light of the progress the County has made in revising the Rural Lands section of its Land Use Element to meet the requirements of the GMA, it is appropriate to grant additional time to complete this work. Thus the Board will grant the additional 90 days requested by Whatcom County.

It bears mentioning here, that in 2010, the County Council spent virtually the entire year undoing what the 2009 Council did in terms of the "urban element" of the County's Comprehensive Plan. If the 2010 County Council, led by Sam Crawford, hadn't tried to perform a bootleg J-turn with the "urban element", then they might have been able to get some progress made on the "rural element" of the Comp Plan, which includes LAMIRDs.

I personally don't expect to see the County break any land speed records getting the Rural Element done in 90 days.

I'm not convinced this Council can "git r done" in 900 days, quite frankly.

It is unclear what the impact this Determination of Invalidity will have on private property owners in terms of what they can and can't do with their land right now. But I suspect that this invalidity does not create the atmosphere of certainty that the land owner or the developer so persistently hunger for.

Until the County gets GMA compliant, there will be no certainty. And getting GMA compliant is going to leave some property owners and developers very unhappy.

Be careful what you wish for developers. Because the GMHB just made one thing certain:

The current LAMIRD criteria in Whatcom County is invalid. And until there is a valid LAMIRD criteria, developers and the business community will have no certainty.

Those 90 extra days aren't going to piss themselves away, County Council.

Git R Done.