I've spent the better part of 30 years talking to elected officials about inadequate supplies of buildable rural parcels. These parcels are required to meet current and future rural housing demands. Over the decades now, I have had to repeat the same conversation. I know rural generations, including rural Veterans, want to return and establish homes where they were raised. Why can't Clark County make the numbers work? Why can't rural families have housing that is culturally relevant?
A glaring gap exists between what makes numerical sense and the repeated failures of comprehensive growth plans to support rural housing. Right now, the county's rural areas are experiencing the most sustained housing stress in GMA county planning history. The gap is not just an economic inconvenience. It has lingered long enough to affect the long-term viability of Clark County Rural Communities, Rural Culture and creates instabilities for Rural Clark County Families. The rural areas are not approaching a housing crisis. . . we have been living it! This is causing displacement that is not recognized in the county's comprehensive growth plans.
Yet the tools and policies that could alleviate the crisis and help the county's growth plans adapt to rural needs have done nothing. Instead, Rural families, including rural Veterans, are being forced to change and adapt their lives to accommodate the only type of housing available—URBAN HOUSING.
Rural families are being forced to swap one culture and adapt their lifestyle to another. This decision, this policy has been replicated for 30+ years, across many alternative growth plans presented by county officials. Rural housing is stressed and that burdens families. Replicated across the region that is already in an affordability crisis, and the impacts compound dramatically. No one is so negatively burdened as rural families.
Instead of addressing the underlying causes, the status quo is maintained. Reports are intentionally crafted to serve a preconceived agenda, maintaining large-lot zoning and promoting an ill-conceived notion that more resource land is needed.
So why, after 32 years of hard evidence, are rural families merely a footnote in Clark County planning? The answer is clearly a systemic failure.
The infrastructure of planners and policymakers repeatedly trades off rural housing to advance increased urban densities, multifamily units, no yards, no parking, and no garages. Families and Veterans who want to maintain living in a rural culture often must settle for what is available and often cannot afford what is. Often, this requires them to make life-altering changes. This should prompt the county to require Social and Cultural Impact Statements right alongside Environmental Impact Statements. The county fails such social analysis.
The housing needs of rural communities are not easily verified; the supply numbers are mostly inaccurate and there is no accountability for these numbers. Rural families are left geographically scattered, fragmented, and burdened with excessive regulatory actions if they are able to build on a parcel. The county offers little of the technical support needed to succeed in its home-building permitting efforts. Rural permitting processes have become overburdened with excessive reports, increased fees and permanent conservation covenants.
The county is allowing thousands of people to be culturally squeezed out of housing. They are not recognizing rural housing as a staple for this culture. That framing of a community of people has limited housing market development, suppressed land parcels, suppressed investment, and kept this community invisible to planners and elected officials. It also limits Veterans' ability to make full use of the GI Bill for their preferred housing.
The means to fix this exist. Intelligent, equitable and ethical housing policies can connect rural families to culturally appropriate housing that is Growth Management Act required. Begin with the will to change obsolete, illegal policies and regulations that have placed excessive limitations on rural housing. Begin with the will, and new policies that shape how rural families see what's possible for their affordable housing needs.
The legal infrastructure has always been there. It is known as the Poyfair Remand. The question is whether the county will remove the cap on rural growth and build the system to support the housing rural families need before any more are displaced.
1999 Washington State Court of Appeals Division II - CCCU vs CCNRC Decision
The court ruled that the GMA did not require the County to use OFM's population projections as a fixed cap on non-urban growth, and that the Board had exceeded its authority by creating and imposing such a cap on the County.
The Superior Court ruled and the Washington Court of Appeals Division II agreed:
... There is no requirement in the GMA that the OFM projections be used in any manner other than as a measure to ensure urban growth areas are adequately sized and infrastructure in those areas is provided for. The Board's requirement to, in essence, require a vacant buildable lands analysis for the rural areas was erroneous. This Board decision, however, compelled the County to downzone substantial portions of rural areas to meet the Board's apparent requirements. Morgan, J. Clerk's Papers at 739-740.
The Washington courts have given clear and concise directions on what Clark County must do regarding rural housing in the Comprehensive Plan. But it all has been ignored by both the Western Washington Growth Management Hearing Board and Clark County policymakers. Changes must be made to ensure all of the people in the county are treated fairly and equitably and rural housing is considered just as important as urban housing.
Sincerely,
Susan Rasmussen, President
Clark County Citizens United, Inc.
Battle Ground
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