Court Opinion

ID: 9629634
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:46:18.188776+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:55.308509
License: Public Domain

Hamilton, J.
(dissenting) — I dissent from part III of the majority opinion.
The King County Boundary Review Board is a creature of statute, RCW 36.93.030. Its purpose is simply to review and approve, disapprove or modify a limited type of action. RCW 36.93.100. Among the reviewable actions are changes in the boundary of any city or the change in a sewer system boundary.
The majority states in somewhat conclusory language that it is clear a threshold determination is required in actions of this kind. I cannot agree with this conclusion. It is unreasonable from a practical and policy standpoint to apply the State Environmental Policy Act of 1971 (SEPA) to the board's annexation actions.
*870In Carpenter v. Island County, 89 Wn.2d 881, 577 P.2d 575 (1978), we reviewed the need for a threshold determination and environmental impact statement (EIS). That case involved annexation of territory to a sewer district for use as a sewer district. In Carpenter, we noted that recent, but not controlling, administrative regulations indicate threshold determinations should be required at the earliest point in the planning and decision-making process when the principal features of a proposal and its impacts upon the environment can be reliably identified.
This is an appropriate standard. Requiring a threshold determination at the point when impacts can be reliably identified operates to fulfill the purposes of SEPA without creating a needless barrier in situations where an undertaking is minor. And, indeed, it was the intent of the legislature to require an environmental evaluation only where major action is contemplated. RCW 43.21C.030.
The inclusion of property by annexation does nothing to change the basic character of the property. Annexation by itself simply brings about a change in the imaginary lines marking a government's jurisdictional limits. It is absurd to say that the environment is aifected merely because a city limits sign is relocated. Further, in the ordinary case, annexation well precedes the point when it is possible to reliably identify environmental impacts. Identifiable impacts attend not annexation, but rather actions which occur subsequently, such as: zoning for new use or the issuance of a development permit. Importantly, prior to the completion of the annexation process all development and zoning plans are necessarily only speculative. A government obviously is without power to control the use of land not subject to its jurisdiction. But after land is subjected to a government's jurisdiction through completed annexation, speculative plans can become concrete proposals which require certain zoning or permits. At this point it is possible to reliably identify environmental impacts. A threshold determination and a probable EIS would then appear to be necessary and indeed reasonable.
*871From a policy standpoint, subjecting simple actions, such as annexation, to SEPA clearly will result in stagnation of responsible growth and development. As a practical matter, requiring threshold determinations at such an early stage will create additional and extended litigation driving up the costs of worthy and needed projects. Eventually, much development will be abandoned, not because a project was rejected by an authorized body, but because it has been delayed beginning with a proposed annexation, and thereafter over and over again by contests and litigation requiring costly additional and, in some instances, useless acts. SEPA, if it has not already, will certainly become a tool for those who oppose annexation for purely political or economic reasons.
The burden of the majority's decision falls not upon those who have reaped the benefits of pre-SEPA development and now carry the banner of environmentalism, but upon those less fortunate. And the ultimate loser in what can best be described as this war of attrition will be the taxpayers. They will have to support the increasing costs of government services to underdeveloped or deteriorating areas, since roadblocks to business development will effectively preclude a local jurisdiction from expanding its tax base and alleviating the burden on the individual taxpayer.
For the reasons stated, I file this dissent.
Rosellini ¿nd Hicks, JJ., concur with Hamilton, J.
Reconsideration denied February 15, 1979.