Proceedings for excluding agricultural land from the boundaries of a charter code city or noncharter code city may be commenced by the filing of a petition which is sufficient as determined by RCW 35A.01.040 by property owners of the agricultural land proposed to be excluded, in the following manner which is alternative to other methods provided in this chapter:

     (1) A petition for exclusion of agricultural land from the incorporated area of a code city shall be filed with the legislative body of the municipality. The petition for exclusion must be signed by the owners of not less than one hundred percent of the agricultural land for which exclusion is sought and, if residents exist within the area proposed for exclusion, a majority of the registered voters residing in the area for which exclusion is petitioned.

     (2) The petition shall set forth a legal description of the territory proposed to be excluded and shall be accompanied by a drawing that outlines the boundaries of the territory sought to be excluded.

     (3) When a petition for exclusion that meets the requirements of this section and RCW 35A.01.040 is filed with the legislative body of the code city, the legislative body shall set a date, not later than sixty days after the filing of the request, for a public hearing thereon and cause notice of the hearing to be published in one or more issues of a newspaper of general circulation in the city. The notice shall also be posted in three public places within the territory proposed for exclusion, and shall specify the time and place of hearing and invite interested persons to appear and voice approval or disapproval of the exclusion.

     (4) Following the hearing, if the legislative body determines to effect the exclusion from city boundaries, they shall do so by ordinance. The ordinance may exclude all or any portion of the proposed territory but may not include in the exclusion any territory not described in the petition. The ordinance shall contain a legal description of the territory and declare it no longer a part of the code city.

[2005 c 77 § 1.]