By Kirk Kirkland
With the state legislative session ending on March 7, it is time to focus on Pierce County’s Comp Plan, which is up for a five-year review. Recently, the Pierce County Planning Department invited people to comment on their Environmental Impact Statement that describes how the county will grow over the next 5-10 years.
Pierce Climate Change. ForeverGreen Trails, Tahoma Bird Alliance, and Friends of Pierce County have all written comment letters that describe their visions for Pierce County’s future.
Proposed Collaboration
I have invited these groups to collaborate with Environmental Coalition to submit our hopes and concerns for the Comp Plan as a joint letter. With our concerns consolidated, we can skip the elaborate process of meeting the Community Advisory Boards and the County Planning Commission. In these two venues, commentary is limited to only 2 minutes per person, and does not allow for thorough, detailed analysis unless several individuals speak on different aspects of the plan.
In a recent meeting with Pierce County Council members Robyn Denson and Jani Hitchen, they encouraged me to compile our request into a consolidated proposal for them to review. I’m currently in the process of reviewing the comment letters and will send out a draft proposal for each group to review and tell me if anything is missing or needs re-writing.
In past years these organizations have worked this way as I was able to find a county council member who would sponsor our proposed legislation. Now, with a 4-3 Democratic Party majority on the council, the welcome sign is out again.
These councilmembers will have additional changes to share, and together we have a good chance for a fair hearing of the environmental community’s interests and concerns. In past legislation that we presented to the Pierce County Planning Commission, even when we found enough presenters to effectively divide our comments into several short speeches, the Planning Commission did not accept our proposed changes.
For readers who are not familiar with county policies and how they affect growth, the county website has some guidance to help you be a part of the conversation. The suburban sprawl we have been experiencing for many years may now shift toward Transit-Oriented Development.
Centers and Corridors Implementation –
Alternative 2 would build on strategic moves to “bend the trend” of growth in alignment with regional objectives, which was started by the Centers and Corridors planning initiative adopted in 2021. It would also update Countywide planning policies to make the community more resilient to climate change, offer transportation choices, and improve housing affordability.
High-Capacity Transit (HCT) Focus –
Alternative 3 proposes investments and changes intended to “end the trend” of existing land use patterns by rapidly shifting growth, transportation, and climate policies to align with Comprehensive Plan Update objectives. This would create a high-density, multi-modal core in the high-capacity transit (HCT) area. HCT is defined in Section 1.4.1, Land Use Terminology.
The comment letters that were submitted analyzed the different alternatives, and especially the differences between them. Now it is up to us, working together with County Councilmembers to compare the effects of these different options and ultimately decide if we want to live in the community the planners are proposing for all of us.