§ 3.4 - Allocating Population and Housing to Urban Growth Areas and Rural Areas

Statutory provisions and allocation techniques regarding allocating population and housing are discussed below.

(1) GMA provisions

The GMA requires counties to designate urban growth areas (UGAs) sufficient to accommodate the urban portion of 20 years' worth of growth. RCW 36.70A. 110(2). This requirement means that the countywide population forecast must be broken down into urban and rural shares. A UGA can have more than one city in it. RCW 36.70A.110(1). The cities must propose urban growth area boundaries, and the county is required to consult with them on those boundaries before adopting them. RCW 36.70A.110(2). As a practical matter, however, if there is more than one city in a county, there may need to be a designated UGA for each, each with its own separate population allocation. RCW 36.70A.110(7) implies a key reason for this, because it authorizes the designation of potential annexation areas for specific cities. Under RCW 36.70A.130(3), an evaluation must be done every eight years of the adequacy of the UGAs to accommodate their growth allocation over the succeeding 20-year period.

Under RCW 36.70A.115, each jurisdiction planning under the GMA has an individual responsibility to provide adequate capacity for its growth allocation.

(2) Allocation techniques

There are a variety of ways to determine how much growth to assign to smaller areas within a county, but a major distinction might be between policy-oriented and trend-oriented approaches.

Under a policy-oriented approach, a city or county would decide how much of its growth is desirable to accommodate in a given subarea within the county or city. For example, a low target share might be set for rural areas (with a corresponding high one for the urban areas), with the goal of avoiding urban sprawl. As an example, King County has targeted only four percent of its growth to its rural areas. King Cnty., King County Buildable Lands Report Ch. VI (Sept. 2007), available at http://your.kingcounty.gov/budget/buildland/BLR_Ch6.pdf. Likewise, an ambitious target share might be set for urban redevelopment in a downtown or other core area.

In contrast, a trend-oriented approach would more reflect where growth is likely to occur, rather than where county officials might prefer it to go. Under a trend-oriented approach, a county might choose to accommodate historic general market patterns from the perspective that they reflect valid long-standing development needs. For example, past...