Planning Advisor April 2007

MRSC FOCUS › Planning Advisor April 2007

MRSC has joined with Phil Olbrechts, Attorney, Ogden Murphy Wallace, Pat Dugan, Dugan Consulting Services, Arthur Sullivan, Program Manager of ARCH (A Regional Coalition for Housing), and Anindita Mitra, founder of CREÄ Affiliates, LLC, to bring you the "Planning Advisor" article series on planning and growth management issue affecting Washington Local Governments. The "Planning Advisor" will feature a new article each month with timely information and advice you can use.*

The Third Promise of the Growth Management Act

April 2007

By Pat Dugan
Dugan Consulting Servcies

Introduction

When the legislature passed the Growth Management Act (GMA) in 1990, the Act offered three major promises to those of us who supported its passage. For those of us who had to implement the Act, these promises loomed as three formidable challenges. These promises, or challenges, were:

Protecting critical and natural resource areas,
Focusing new growth into designated urban growth areas, and
Ensuring that new development would be served efficiently by adequate public facilities.

During the past seventeen years, local governments have achieved a great deal in responding to the first two of those challenges. We may not, however, have made as much progress on the third promise.

This discussion seeks to assess where we are in achieving the promise of better capital facility planning. The discussion will describe what GMA requires and how local governments have tended respond to these requirements. I will particularly focus on the implications of the planning goals on capital facility plans; an often overlooked aspect of GMA capital facility planning.

Capital Facility Planning In the Growth Management Act

The capital facility provisions of the GMA reflect two major public policy objectives: to reduce the costs of serving new development with public facilities; and to ensure that public facilities will be available at the time of development.

Growth management can provide not only better land use, it can reduce the cost of serving new development with public facilities. This compelling proposition was shaped by various studies over the years, including the landmark Cost of Sprawl¹ study in 1974, that concluded that sprawl is costly to serve with public facilities and services. GMA incorporates this public policy objective it its first planning goal (RCW 36.70A.020[1]):

Urban growth. Encourage development in urban areas where adequate public facilities and services exist or can be provided in an efficient manner.

GMA places even more accent on ensuring that new development will be served by adequate public facilities as new development occurs, as set forth in planning goal 12 (RCW 36.70A.020[12]):

Public facilities and services. Ensure that those public facilities and services necessary to support development shall be adequate to serve the development at the time the development is available for occupancy and use without decreasing current service levels below locally established minimum standards.

To implement these planning goals, GMA requires comprehensive plans to include a capital facility element, also referred to as a capital facility plan (CFP). Since the Act requires all comprehensive plan elements to be consistent, this CFP must be integrated with the land use element, as well as the other elements of the comprehensive plan.

The specific requirements for the capital facility element are set forth in RCW 36.70A.070:

(3) A capital facilities plan element consisting of: (a) An inventory of existing capital facilities owned by public entities, showing the locations and capacities of the capital facilities; (b) a forecast of the future needs for such capital facilities; (c) the proposed locations and capacities of expanded or new capital facilities; (d) at least a six-year plan that will finance such capital facilities within projected funding capacities and clearly identifies sources of public money for such purposes; and (e) a requirement to reassess the land use element if probable funding falls short of meeting existing needs and to ensure that the land use element, capital facilities plan element, and financing plan within the capital facilities plan element are coordinated and consistent. Park and recreation facilities shall be included in the capital facilities plan element.

In addition to the capital facilities element, GMA also requires a separate element for transportation facilities. The transportation element has requirements similar to those of the capital facility element quoted above, although stated differently. However, the transportation element goes further than the capital facilities element in implementing planning goal 12 by requiring specific regulatory measures (known as “concurrency”) to ensure adequate transportation facilities are available to serve new development.²

Existing Capital Facility Plans

Local governments have responded to the specific requirements for the capital facility plan in a variety of ways. While there are clearly many capital facility plans that effectively address all of the specific requirements of the Act, many others are weaker in how well they address these requirements. While I have not read all of (or even a quarter of) the capital facility elements in the state, I have reviewed a great many and I would characterize the ones I have read against the specific requirements of RCW 36.70A.070(3) as follows:

Inventories: CFPs usually include a full inventory of eisting facilities, although the level of detail varies widely from plan to plan.
Needs Assessment: Many, but not all, local governments have assessed their need for future facilities and services by identifying a level of service (LOS) for each type of facility and then estimating the amount of facilities that will be needed by applying that standard.
Future Locations: While many plans identify the location of the future facilities identified in (2) above, many others do not. Some jurisdictions may identify potential locations for some facilities (for example, where future parks might be located), while not for other facilities (such as, where the next fire station will be). Among those city plans that identify potential locations for future facilities within their city limits, many do not (nor do the relevant county plan) identify the location of such facilities within the unincorporated areas of their urban growth areas.
Financing Plan: Every plan does include at least a six-year plan to finance facilities. However, it is difficult to gauge how realistic many of these financing plans are. Too many of the financing plans consist only of a listing of potential revenue sources (usually grants), and then a matching of those funding sources to planned facilities that will be built (usually assuming a lot of favorable grant awards). Collectively, the sum of the costs between all of these financing plans probably far exceeds the amount of available revenue from the grant sources identified in the financing plans. It is unusual to find a financing plan that addresses more than six years. Many CFPs do not provide a clear analysis of the jurisdiction’s ability to fund “capital facilities within projected funding capacities” or a financing strategy beyond a simple listing of potential sources of revenue.
Reassessment: Only a few plans have policies that identify how the jurisdiction will determine “if probable funding falls short of meeting existing needs” and how it will “ensure that the land use element, capital facilities plan element, and financing plan within the capital facilities plan element are coordinated and consistent.” As noted below, such policies would demonstrate how the local government will meet goal 12 if funding falls short of meeting identified needs.

If my sampling of capital facility elements is representative, it would appear that collectively we have a good understanding of what we have and what our needs are. We are, however, far less clear about what we are going to do to meet future needs, and particularly, how we are going to finance the facilities required to satisfy those needs over the long-term.

Capital Facility Planning Goals

As important as meeting the specific requirements for the Capital Facility Plan as set forth in RCW 36.70A.070(3) is for achieving the promise of the GMA for capital facilities, even more important is whether effective capital facility planning is occurring. Are the adopted capital facility plans capable of achieving the planning goals?

While the mandated, specific requirements for Capital Facility Plans reflect GMA planning goals, the goals go beyond minimally complying with these specific requirements.³

A comprehensive plan’s land use element is inextricably linked to the capital facility element. Planning goals 1 and 12 together would be difficult to achieve unless we know how the land use commitments made in the land use element are to be supported by facilities and services that future development will need. Equally, if not more importantly, we should have some idea about how to finance those facilities and services. Without a good Capital Facilities Plan and an analysis of the financial burden new development will place upon the resources and fiscal capacity of local government, goal 12’s challenge that facilities and services will be adequate for anticipated development would be frustrated.

An understanding of how the facilities needed to support the entire land use plan are to be financed should go beyond the impression given by RCW 36.70A.070(3)(d) that GMA financial planning need only consider six years. While it is literally true a CFP must include such six-year plan (at least), implementing goal 12 goes beyond that minimal threshold. To achieve planning goal 12, a capital facilities element should address, over the life of the plan, how the needed public facilities and services will be provided and financed throughout the jurisdiction. This does not need to be as explicit or detailed as the financing plan specifically required by the RCW 36.70A.070(3)(d), but an effective CFP should describe a strategy (or at least an approach) for financing the facilities needed and how it will be able to support the land use plan at the adopted levels of service. A county or city can’t fulfill the requirements of planning goal 12 without a futuristic look at its community using a detailed capital facilities plan element, among other elements of its comprehensive plan.

Even if we rely on solely the six-year plans, they must be realistic and up-to-date. The minimum six-year CFP is a living document. An out-of-date or unrealistic six-year financing plan can not achieve its purpose of helping cities and counties understand their current and future financial capabilities as they grow, how to pay for that growth, and in some respects, how to grow.

Goal 1 also requires an understanding of a jurisdiction’s long-term fiscal capacity. With updated financial information, a city may find it more cost-effective to increase density within its present area to absorb its population allocation, rather than to run expensive utilities into expanding territory. An up-to-date CFP is a tool that can provide such strategic information.

Achieving goal 12 needs an understanding of how (in the context of RCW 36.70A.070(3)) a jurisdiction will know “if probable funding” is falling short “of meeting existing needs,” and how the jurisdiction should adjust its plans in response to such a short fall, while also ensuring “that the land use element, capital facilities plan element, and financing plan within the capital facilities plan element are coordinated and consistent.” Such policies should describe how the local government will monitor land development and the development of public facilities to know whether capital facility development is keeping up. The policies should then describe what the local government will do if capital facility development is not keeping pace with land development. Without policies that address the vicissitudes of capital funding and development, how can we know we are ensuring, and can continue ensuring, that public facilities are and will be adequate to serve the development at the time the development through the life of the plan?

In some cases, the GMA hearings boards have “helped” improve capital facility plans when those plans have been appealed. In the course of these rulings, the boards (especially the Central Board) have provided good guidance on how both the specific requirements of RCW 36.70A.070(3) and the general expectations of the goals can be met. Those readers who are interested in GMA capital facility planning should read the “Capital Facilities” section in the case digest of each board. While each board has approached the particular issues raised in various cases a bit differently, there are common themes (consistent with what is described above).⁴

Conclusion

While there are many jurisdictions that have developed good capital facility plans, many local governments have not yet achieved what could be hoped for in capital facility planning. While good capital facility planning involves many difficult decisions, these challenges are probably not much greater than the challenges we have already met in other aspects of the GMA such as the designation of urban growth areas and the protection of critical areas. In future Planning Advisor c olumns, I hope to offer some insights on how better capital facility planning can be achieved.

1 Published by the Real Estate Research Corporation in 1974.

2 While complying with the concurrency requirements in the transportation element is one of the more difficult challenges of the GMA, I will leave the particular aspects of that challenge to another time.

3 My purpose here is not to identify what is needed in order to comply legally with the Act—I will leave that to lawyers. Rather my intention is to describe what I believe we should be doing for “good” capital facility planning in the context of the GMA.

4 The above discussion in this section is derived from the decisions of all three growth management hearings boards, and much of the language is paraphrased from those decisions.

Pat Dugan has a unique combination of experience in both planning and public finance, spanning 35 years. As a planner, he has been a planning director in two cities (Auburn and Burien), and two regional planning agencies in Oregon and Washington; and was a planning manager in Goleta, California. In public finance, Pat has served as the chief financial officer in four public agencies including the Cities of Auburn and Lynnwood, and the Snohomish County Public Works Department. He has written extensively on financing capital facility programs and on public finance for planners. Pat now offers planning and public finance consulting services and in his own firm, Dugan Consulting Services in Everett and can be reached at consult.dugan@verizon.net.

Anindita Mitra, AICP is the Founder of CREÄ Affiliates, LLC a planning and urban design consultancy that focuses on creating awareness of unsustainable practices, and offers a platform for affected parties to openly communicate and collaborate to arrive at creative sustainable solutions. She is also one of the Co-Chairs of the Climate and Sustainability Initiative of the Washington Chapter of the American Planning Association. Anindita's current interests include the development of sustainable master plans and streetscape designs; establishing sustainable community indicators and their integration into comprehensive plans and governance; identifying creative solutions directing communities towards energy-independence; preparing communities for the challenges potentially brought upon by the Climate Change phenomenon; and advancing the integration of transit and non-motorized travel solutions into community land use planning. She has worked throughout the United States for both the public and private sectors.

Phil Olbrechts is a member (similar to partner) and elected member of the board of directors of Ogden, Murphy, Wallace, LLC. Phil focuses his practice on land use law and currently represents seven municipalities as either City Attorney or Hearing Examiner. He has taught over a dozen credits of land use law at the University of Washington, has taught numerous land use continuing legal education courses and has made over 200 land use presentations to elected and appointed officials throughout Washington State. Phil has served on the Seattle Planning Commission and in the past served as the Planning Director for two municipalities.

Arthur Sullivan is the Program Manager of ARCH (A Regional Coalition for Housing). ARCH is a coalition of 16 public jurisdictions located in East King County. Its purpose is to facilitate efforts of public jurisdictions to create a full range of housing, with an emphasis on affordable housing. In 2004 ARCH was the winner of the inaugural Ash Institute / Fannie Mae Foundation Innovations in American Government Award in Affordable Housing. Previously Arthur was a Senior Manager at BRIDGE Housing and planner for Environmental Impact Planning. He holds a B.A. in Planning from the University of Washington, and a Master of Planning from UC, Berkeley.

*The Articles appearing in the "Planning Advisor" column represent the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Municipal Research & Services Center.