Good luck untangling shoreline rules after court ruling
The Washington State Supreme Court issued a decision Thursday that has created confusion for many cities and counties. Check out a story I wrote for today’s Kitsap Sun.
Local officials believed they were increasing protections for fish and wildlife living in the shoreline environment when they updated their critical areas ordinances. Thursday’s 5-4 ruling says that only shoreline plans — not critical areas ordinances — can address the shoreline environment.
Every city and county will need to read over their own ordinances and see how this ruling will affect them.
Bainbridge Island, which was in the middle of discussions about updating its shoreline buffers, may back away from that controversy and tackle the issue during the next update to its shorelines plan in 2011. See Tristan Baurick’s story.
Kitsap County faces a somewhat different issue. County officials already conducted hearings and increased shoreline buffers as an interim measure, pending a full update to the shorelines plan, also due in 2011. So shorelines buffers are in place, pending court appeals filed by the Kitsap Alliance of Property Owners. While it is true that the update was forced on the county as the result of an appeal to the Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board, that may be water under the bridge now.
So what would happen if the Kitsap County Critical Areas Ordinance goes away with respect to shorelines? I’ve been asking around, but the outcome still isn’t clear to me. If you look in the shorelines plan, you will find no mention of buffers at all. Instead, the document directs you to look at the county’s Critical Areas Ordinance.
I recall some years ago that the Department of Ecology wanted Kitsap County to put shoreline setbacks and other numbers into its shorelines plan. But county officials refused, saying that doing so would remove the flexibility to change the setbacks without undertaking a full revision of the shorelines plan.
So if the Critical Areas Ordinance goes away, you will still find a reference to the Critical Areas Ordinance — maybe the previous one before the latest update? If you take the previous one away, you are left with setbacks in the zoning code in effect before that.
I don’t believe that sorting all this out will be as simple as some people think.
The Supreme Court opinion and the dissenting opinion can be found on the court’s Web site.
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August 2nd, 2008 at 3:28 pm
ask me to name the 68 Yankees and i will sound intelligent .
So the court is basically saying local communitie legislating districts can not set up their own buffer zones when it comes to shoreline boundries ?
What happens if their is circumstances that all of us would agree was a bad idea not to do so in certain areas .
Looks to me extreme envirnomental positions by certain counties by making one buffer fit all areas have caused such a back lash that it may hurt the envirnoment more so because of throwing out the baby with the bath water .
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Explain in baseball language someone please .
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August 4th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
The Shoreline Management Act (RCW 90.58) defines “master program” to include not only the plan, but also the “use regulations” adopted to implement said plan, See RCW 90.58.030(3)(b).
If the Shoreline Master Plan specifically refers to the CAO for buffer regulations, then presumably the CAO serves as a “use regulation” to the SMP. Therefore, the shoreline buffers found in the CAO are effectively a part of the SMP and the Court’s decision has no effect on the County’s shoreline buffer regulations.
Or, in baseball language, the Designated Hitter rule applies only in American League ballparks. But no worries, Mariners’ pitchers have better batting averages than the fielders anyway.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Thank you Jerry .
I guess we will have to waith till next year . ;0}