Court Opinion

ID: 9558972
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:19:44.804216+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:41.063824
License: Public Domain

Becker, J.
(dissenting) — I respectfully disagree with the disposition of the majority. I would hold that the Caswells properly obtained review of a land use decision by using the Land Use Petition Act (LUPA), and that the superior court was right to reverse the hearing examiner’s decision because it permitted an urban growth development outside the Interim Urban Growth Area (IUGA). I would affirm the judgment of the superior court.
*204Most of the majority opinion elaborates a point that is not in dispute. The lawfulness of a county’s designation of an interim urban growth area may not be reviewed in a LUPA petition. RCW 36.70C.030(1)(a)(ii); King County v. Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Bd., 138 Wn.2d 161, 182 n.9, 979 P.2d 374 (1999). But the Caswells are not challenging the lawfulness of Pierce County’s designation of the IUGA nor are they claiming that the IUGA conflicts with the Growth Management Act. To the contrary, they rely on Pierce County’s designation of its IUGA. The IUGA designation is a development regulation, as the majority recognizes and as we held in Association of Rural Residents v. Kitsap County, 95 Wn. App. 383, 974 P.2d 863, review granted, 138 Wn.2d 1008 (1999). The Caswells contend that Fir Grove’s proposal violates the development regulation the County enacted when it excluded the Fir Grove property from the Interim Urban Growth area. This is exactly the kind of challenge that is supposed to be brought under LUPA. It is not subject to review by the Growth Management Board.
Fir Grove contends that the permit granted by the hearing examiner is insulated from judicial review because the County incorporated its preexisting General-Rural Zone ordinance, No. 93-84S2, into its IUGA ordinance. In the General-Rule Zone, mobile home parks up to 10 units per acre are allowed as a conditional use. According to Fir Grove, an attack on the validity of the older ordinance may be subject to review by the Growth Management Board, but it is not a proper subject for a LUPA petition. The flaw in this argument is that the Caswells are not challenging the validity of Ordinance No. 93-84S2. They are challenging a permit. The permit is a land use decision. See RCW 36.70C.020(1). It is subject to judicial review under LUPA.
If the General-Rural Zone were the only development regulation applicable to Fir Grove’s proposed expansion, then the hearing examiner’s decision to grant the permit would have to be affirmed. But it is not the only applicable regulation. The proposal is also subject to the regulation *205designating Fir Grove’s property as outside the area in which urban growth will be allowed to occur. As the majority recognizes in part III of its opinion, Majority at 201, the real issue in this case is the problem presented when two different development regulations both apply to the same property. The General-Rural Zone ordinance allows the property to have a mobile home park as a conditional use. The IUGA designation allows the property to have development “only if it is not urban in nature.” RCW 36.70A.110(1).
I would hold that the proposed mobile home park cannot be permitted outside the IUGA because its density is almost three units per acre—a density that the Hearing Examiner’s unchallenged finding recognizes as “an urban density.” The Hearing Examiner also found that the project “will result in urban density living outside of the interim urban growth area which violates the spirit and intent of the IGMP (Interim Growth Management Policies). Furthermore, urban density services are not present in the area and the applicant cannot supply them, even though proposing an urban density development.”
Having made these findings, the hearing examiner was able to approve the project only because he did not consider the IUGA designation to be a development regulation. In his view, the only applicable regulation was the General-Rural Zone ordinance, and it overrode the interim growth management policies in the comprehensive plan.
The majority acknowledges the hearing examiner’s error in failing to regard Pierce County’s IUGA designation as a development regulation, see Majority at 201, but the majority nevertheless reinstates the hearing examiner’s decision. Majority at 203. Observing that the County left the General-Rural Zone ordinance intact, the majority summarily declares that the County clearly intended to allow mobile home parks to be built outside the IUGA fine up to the full 10 units per acre that the General-Rural Zone allows. Majority at 203. This analysis is unpersuasive because it makes no attempt to give effect to the IUGA designation *206or to the hearing examiner’s unchallenged findings. The effect of an IUGA designation is to preclude urban growth from occurring outside the line. The hearing examiner found that the proposed project, a mobile home park of 2.8 units per acre, is an urban density development that will not be supplied with, urban density services.
Local definitions of “urban growth,” a key GMA term, will evolve as cities and counties develop their planning and zoning under the Growth Management Act. See Association of Rural Residents, 95 Wn. App. at 396. If Pierce County’s IUGA ordinance definitely stated that the County does not consider mobile home parks to be urban growth, or does not consider developments of less than three units per acre to be an urban density, the hearing examiner’s findings would be subject to challenge as an error of law. But Pierce County’s IUGA ordinance does not provide that type of definition. As a result, the hearing examiner’s factual finding that the Fir Grove project is urban in character is one to which courts must defer as the best indication of Pierce County’s views on the subject.
Contrary to the majority’s holding, the ordinances themselves also indicate that the county did not intend for the provisions of the General-Rural Zone ordinance to operate without any limitation provided by the IUGA. The ordinance that establishes the General-Rural Zone incorporates a finding that the objectives of the Pierce County Interim Growth Management Policies “will guide the County’s decisions affecting land use until the new comprehensive plan is adopted.” Ordinance No. 93-84S2, section 5, exhibit E, finding of fact 15. The Council also found that a limitation to 10-acre lots was necessary to “preserve the rural character of Pierce County until further evaluation has occurred and the new comprehensive plan and implementing regulations are adopted.” Exhibit E, finding of fact 28. The executive summary of the Interim Growth Management Policies provides that “it is imperative that land use decisions not commit the county to directions inconsistent with statewide growth management objectives.”
*207In addition, in the ordinance designating the IUGA, the County Council found unconditionally that the General-Rural Zone “sets 10 acres as the minimum lot size for new development.” Ordinance No. 93-91S, finding of fact 17. The Growth Management Board interpreted this ordinance as manifesting the County’s intent to allow growth to occur outside the IUGA only at densities no greater than one unit per 10 acres, and found it acceptable as an interim development regulation because “A density of one unit per ten acres is a rural density.” Tacoma v. Pierce County, No. 94-3-0001, Central Puget Sound Growth Mgmt. Hr’g’s Bd. Decision and Order, at 493 (July 5, 1994). Pierce County should not be heard to say now, in a different forum, that its ordinances actually were intended to allow a development almost 30 times that dense outside the area designated for urban growth.
I would hold, instead, that the County intended its IUGA designation as an additional limitation supplementing the restrictions of the General-Rural Zone. The additional restriction precludes urban growth outside the line. With a density of almost three units per acre, the Fir Grove project is urban growth. The project is outside the urban growth line. Therefore, the permit should be denied. The superior court should be affirmed.