SB5203 – Updating planning requirements to improve the State’s climate response.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Lovelett (D; 40th District; Anacortes) (Co-Sponsor Liias – D) (By request of the Governor.)
Current status – Had a hearing on a substitute in the Senate Committee on Local Government, January 17th. Replaced by a new substitute and passed out of committee February 9th; referred to Ways and Means.
Next step would be – Scheduling a hearing.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1181 is a companion bill in the House.
Substitute –
There’s a staff report on the substitute which was heard in committee.The changes in the substitute which was voted out of committee are summarized by staff in a couple of pages at the beginning of it.
Summary –
The bill would add a climate change and resiliency goal to the fourteen others that are to guide the development of comprehensive plans, and have that also apply to the countywide planning process and regional transportation planning. The new goal would have planning adapt to and mitigate the effects of a changing climate; support reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and per capita vehicle miles traveled; prepare for climate impact scenarios; foster resiliency to climate impacts and natural hazards; protect and enhance environmental, economic, and human health and safety; and advance environmental justice. The bill would add consideration of climate impacts to shoreline master planning. However, jurisdictions would not be obliged to comply with these amendments until the state had provided funding for that.
It would specify that the land use element of comprehensive plans must give special consideration to achieving environmental justice in its goals and policies, including efforts to avoid creating or worsening environmental health disparities; should consider using approaches that reduce per capita vehicle miles traveled; must reduce and mitigate the risk to lives and property posed by wildfires with measures like reducing residential development pressure in the wildland urban interface area, creating open space buffers between development and wildfire prone landscapes, and protecting existing development through community preparedness and fire adaptation.
It would expand the kinds of transit routes that should have level of service standards to help to achieve environmental justice goals, and expand transportation forecasts to include multimodal and rural demand. It expands language about bicycles and pedestrians to include other forms of active transportation. It would prohibit denying approval to a development that failed to meet traffic level of service standards if its transportation needs might be met through improvements for active transportation, enhanced public transportation, ride-sharing programs, demand management, or other strategies funded by the development.
It would require comprehensive plans to include a climate change and resiliency element designed to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions, enhance resiliency, and avoid the adverse impacts of climate change. This would have to include efforts to reduce local emissions and avoid creating or worsening local climate impacts on vulnerable populations and overburdened communities. Countries with over 100,000 people or specified densities or growth rates and planning under the Growth Management Act would be required to include a greenhouse gas emissions reduction subelement, and other jurisdictions would be encouraged to. The resiliency subelement would be required for all jurisdictions planning under the GMA and encouraged for others. These required updates would have to be part of the 2024 planning cycle.
The Department of Commerce, in collaboration with various other agencies, would publish guidelines specifying a set of measures counties and cities could take through updates to their comprehensive plans and development regulations that have a demonstrated ability to increase housing capacity within urban growth areas, reduce emissions, or reduce per capita vehicle miles traveled, allowing for consideration of the emissions reductions achieved through the adoption of statewide programs, and prioritizing reductions in overburdened communities. The bill would exempt from SEPA appeals the adoption of ordinances, amendments to comprehensive plans or development regulations, and other nonproject actions taken to implement measures for reducing emissions or per capita miles traveled that were in the department’s guidelines.
The emissions reduction subelement and related development regulations would have to identify the actions the jurisdiction will take, in accordance with Commerce’s guidelines, to:
1) Reduce transportation and land use emissions within the jurisdiction without increasing them elsewhere in the state;
2) Reduce per capita vehicle miles traveled within the jurisdiction without increasing emissions elsewhere in the state; and,
3) Prioritize reductions in overburdened communities to maximize the combined benefits of reduced air pollution and environmental justice.
Actions that weren’t specifically identified in the guidelines could only be considered to be consistent with them if they were projected to achieve reductions in emissions or per capita vehicle miles traveled equivalent to what would be required under the guidelines, and if they were supported by scientifically credible projections. Jurisdictions would not be allowed to restrict population growth or limit population allocation to achieve the requirements. The guidelines could not include road usage charges, or regulations and taxes on transportation service providers, delivery vehicles, or passenger vehicles.
The resiliency subelement would be required to equitably enhance resiliency to climate change in human communities and ecological systems, and avoid or substantially reduce its adverse impacts through goals, policies, and programs consistent with the best available science and scientifically credible climate projections. It would have to prioritize actions in overburdened communities that will disproportionately suffer from environmental impacts and be most impacted by natural hazards due to climate change. Its goals, policies, and programs would have to include those designed to:
1) Identify, protect, and enhance natural areas and areas of vital habitat for safe passage and species migration to foster resiliency to climate impacts;
2) Identify, protect, and enhance community resiliency to impacts, including social, economic, and built factors that support adaptation consistent with environmental justice; and,
3) Address natural hazards created or aggravated by climate change, including sea level rise, landslides, flooding, drought, heat, smoke, wildfire, and other effects of changes to temperature and precipitation.
Jurisdictions might adopt an existing natural hazard mitigation plan by reference if it met the bill’s requirements, or modify one to do that, and might apply to the Department for an extension of the deadlines to do that. In collaboration with tribes and various agencies, the department would develop a model climate change and resiliency element that could be used by jurisdictions in developing the required plans and policies.
The bill includes provisions for public comment on these subelements, for review and approval of them by the department, and for appeals. The bill would add the presence of overburdened communities to the department’s priorities for providing planning assistance, and require it to establish funding levels for grants to community-based organizations to advance participation of vulnerable populations and overburdened communities in planning.
The bill would require the Department of Ecology to update its guidelines to require shoreline master programs to address the impact of sea level rise and increased storm severity on people, property, shoreline natural resources, and the environment. It would require flood control management plans to include consideration of climate change impacts, including the impacts of sea level rise and increased storm severity.