Opinion ID: 2600501
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Lewis County Code (LCC) 17.30.470(2)(c) and (d): Forest Land Incidental Uses

Text: ¶ 58 LCC 17.30.470 allows incidental uses on forest land, which may provide supplementary income, without detracting from the overall productivity of the forestry activity. (Emphasis added). The uses must not adversely affect the overall productivity of the forest nor affect more than five percent of the prime soils [7] . . . on any forest resource lands; the use must be secondary to the principal activity of forestry; and the use must be sited to avoid prime lands where feasible and otherwise to minimize impact on forest lands of long-term commercial significance. LCC 17.30.470(1); Attach. III (Lewis County's Am. Opening Br.) at 178-79 (Attach.III). ¶ 59 The Board declared several subsections of LCC 17.30.470 as noncompliant and invalid: (2)(c), allowing telecommunication facilities as an incidental activity, and (2)(d), allowing the erection, construction, alteration, and maintenance of gas, electric, water, or communication and public utility facilities. Attach. III at 179; CP at 46. The Board reasoned that the restrictions on the incidental uses did not fulfill the GMA requirement that natural resource lands be conserved and incompatible uses discouraged. CP at 46. ¶ 60 Lewis County had reasoned that these incidental uses are necessary because the county's residential corridors are surrounded by forest lands, any cross county public utility will necessarily cross either forest or agricultural lands. CP at 866. Moreover, most of the prominent hills in the county are located in forest land, thus any desire to run communication lines or towers on tall hills will require that they be located in forest lands. CP at 866. ¶ 61 Considering the protective limits Lewis County placed on the minimally intrusive incidental uses, as well as the necessity of those uses and their importance to the agricultural economy, the uses meet the GMA's directive to conserve agricultural lands and encourage the agricultural economy. The uses comply with the GMA and are well within Lewis County's discretion under the GMA.