Court Opinion

ID: 9557891
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 16:59:32.465657+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:39.423564
License: Public Domain

Grosse, J.
(dissenting) — The majority has either had the wool pulled over its eyes in this case, or is engaging in policy making regarding the Growth Management Act (GMA) that goes well beyond legislative intent. The majority is correct on . the issue of vesting. This project is vested. But, where the majority goes awry is with the nature and scope of the development regulations in effect at the time the application was filed, and with the impact of the growth management process on those regulations and the application. The majority improperly replaces the Growth Management Hearings Board (GMHB) with the courts as the ultimate arbiter of what is rural and what is urban, totally outside the process envisioned by the Legislature.
At the time of the application, the GMA required the GMHB to review and remand a county’s comprehensive plan, including the county’s interim urban growth areas (IUGA), if they were not in compliance with the GMA. At that time, in contrast to current law, it did not allow the GMHB to invalidate a proposed plan, or applicable county regulations. Indeed, the GMA provisions then in effect expressly provided that existing zoning regulations remained in effect while the growth management process continued.
Here, Kitsap County adopted an IUGA in 1993 and *398imposed zoning rules, one of which allowed the type of rural planned unit development at issue here. Again, it must be noted that the GMA left to local agencies the discretion to define the terms and conditions applicable to development in both urban and rural areas, subject to review by the GMHB. In 1994, the 1993 IUGA was disapproved by the GMHB and sent back to Kitsap County, primarily because the GMHB believed Kitsap County’s proposed IUGA was too big. This action did nothing with respect to rural areas or to then existing development regulations in rural areas.
Had Kitsap County complied with the GMA in the first instance, what was rural would have remained rural. This property would have remained rural and would have had development regulations for rural zoning, including rural planned unit developments. It is true that in 1995 the GMHB invalidated Kitsap County’s attempts at compliance with the GMA because, in part, the permitted rural densities were too high. But again, this action could have no effect on this application, as it was vested in the rules in effect in 1993, rules the GMHB had no power to invalidate.
The character of development in rural areas is a sophisticated and highly complex question that the GMA wisely leaves to local discretion, subject to review by the GMHB for compliance with the guidelines of the GMA. The GMA itself expressly allows some development in rural areas at higher densities, subject to requirements for clustering, density transfers, and other creative mechanisms. RCW 36.70A.070(5). Here, the trial court and the majority of this court vitiate this process, indeed ignore it, and simply conclude that this is an urban project because it increases the need for government services. Leaving aside the question of just how it is that the courts can insert themselves this way in the process, this broad sweep is contrary to the necessarily complex process put in place by the Legislature.
*399I would reverse and remand with instructions that the project he permitted to proceed.
Review granted at 138 Wn.2d 1008 (1999).