Growth Management Tug-of-War continues in the courts…
Back in early July, I posted about the a court reversal of the King County Critical Areas Ordinance being overturned on appeal. The issue is that King County’s ordinance required huge areas, up to 65%, of rural properties be left undisturbed. That was successfully argued as being an illegal taking by property rights activists who had challenged the ordinance.
There is a detailed posting in Crosscut today, Paying for our Growing Pains, that goes into much more detail of the history of the King County critical areas ordinance and the issues surrounding it. Apparently, part of what the ordinance is trying to accomplish is to atone for the environmental sins of the cities by burdening the rural areas to make up for them. The ordinance as written may not even allow grazing and other common rural activites on rural properties in King County.
The latest court ruling affirms earlier rulings that mitigation for a development must be tied to the impacts of a particular development. That approach would not allow for rural property owners to carry the burden for urban development. The Crosscut posting is a recommended read if you want to understand environmental and property rights issues and how they interact in the arenas of science, legislation and the state constitution.
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