Developers gamed the system
On August 19, 2024, elected officials from most jurisdictions in the county (Thurston, Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater, Yelm, Tenino, Rainier) held a meeting to discuss ideas for policies regarding UGA swaps. Without advance notice to the public or to planning staff from any of the jurisdictions, the agenda was amended mid-meeting and draft policy language was voted on and approved. The rushed policy language misstates the law because it assumes that the anti-sprawl provisions of the 2024 swap law do not apply to all UGA swaps. View the meeting recording here.
The process was so flawed that two of the seven jurisdictions present submitted a minority opinion the next day in protest. Yelm's mayor played a significant role in pushing the flawed policy through, because that city acquired a 640-acre parcel far out in farmlands and forestlands, which Yelm seeks to develop through a UGA swap. But the parcel does not qualify for a swap under the law. Read more about the Yelm acquisition here.
Olympia City Councilwoman Dani Madrone is to be commended for her comments at this meeting and her attempts to get the group back on track, even though she was unsuccessful.
"Housing crisis" was cited by the others at the meeting multiple times. No housing crisis excuses violating the law. Good governance means making well-considered decisions. All they had to do was allow staff to take a few months to look into this. That was not too much to ask. It is hard to recall in recent memory a process that has been this manipulated in advance to push through a single developer's project. It was an ambush, with a draft policy plopped down in the middle of the meeting and pushed to a vote without advance notice to anyone except those who were part of the scheme.
The developer of Bar Holdings/Salish Landing manipulated the process because it sought to use the more developer-friendly 2022 swap law (which was implicitly superseded by the more balanced 2024 swap law). The 2022 swap law, which arguably is no longer in effect but is still on the books, was to apply to swaps that happen on the 10-year comprehensive plan cycle, which is now.
With the exception of Councilwoman Dani Madrone and Councilwoman Eileen Swarthout, every elected official at this meeting put this particular developer's interests above the need to create policies that serve the entire community's needs. Thurston County Commissioners will now be able to monopolize a flawed process and rush a development proposal through without letting other jurisdictions get any vote.
And all this involves a law with complexity that boggles the mind. That complexity is why staff needed a few months to look into things before any policy was proposed. Ironically, the complexity probably meant that the elected officials who manipulated this meeting were themselves unaware that they too were being manipulated by the developers.
JOLT STAFF PHOTO VIA ZOOM
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