File photo by John Hudson
By Dec. 12, signature gatherers acquired more than the needed 6,891 to place the three referenda on the March 2005 ballot.

The CAO

It was March when King County Executive Ron Sims forwarded his recommended version of the county’s comprehensive plan update and its Critical Areas Ordinance to the county council for consideration.

What is often referred to as the “Critical Areas Ordinance” or the “CAO” is actually a package of three proposed ordinances: the Stormwater Ordinance, the Clearing and Grading Ordinance, and the Critical Areas Ordinance. They guide development with the primary goal of protecting the environment.

The council spent a good part of 2004 studying the executive’s proposal. The first step was review by the Growth Management and Unincorporated Areas Committee, chaired by Councilmember Dow Constantine.

Citizens were invited to attend bi-weekly committee meetings and attend they did.

Robert Larsen, Snoqualmie Valley resident, felt certain that many unincorporated King County citizens – those who would be most affected by the proposed land-use regulations – were unaware of the impending regulations. Sporting a T-shirt that read, “Tell Sims and DDES they can’t have 65 percent of my ground,” Larsen stood on rural King County roadsides passing out leaflets during the evening rush hour, warning of potential changes in the law.

On April 22, the committee held a public meeting on the topic in Carnation.

“In the packed gym of Carnation Elementary,” wrote Lisa Allen, Valley View newspaper editor, “over 65 people signed up to speak, most of them telling the council and staff members that they are the best stewards of their land and that the new rules are brutal and confiscatory.”

Allen also wrote, “Redmond-area resident Robert Scribner called the proposed CAO ‘schizophrenic and a hodge-podge of conflicting chapters,’ adding that he considers it unconstitutional.

“‘I am an environmentalist,’ he said. ‘But King County has some of the most stringent protection laws in the country and now they want to make them stricter. Their best science is totally bogus and looks like it was written by third-rate lawyers.

“‘In Redmond Ridge, swamps are moved, but individual citizens cannot get near a wetland on their (own) property. We are not committing crimes by living on our property. Most of us are good stewards of the land.’”

A week later, over 200 attended the public meeting at Woodinville High. Audubon Society members and environmentalists embraced the proposed regulations.

John Kuhlmann of Carnation said, “I have a lot of respect for Audubon members, but their address is in Seattle. If these meetings were about removing 65 percent of their land (from use, they would be singing a different song).”

Dan Griner of Carnation called the proposed regulations a “wholesale assault on rural area residents who are the best stewards of land in the county.”

Wendy Walsh, 40-year resident of the Woodinville area, supported the new rules, saying, “Many rural residents don’t know the value of the regulations. There is a huge gap of understanding.” She asked that the county communicate better with its citizenry.”

Ray Burhen of Carnation said, “Impose these rules on your constituents, but you know this would be political suicide.”

Kay Buccola said, “Let me get this straight. Are you managing my property for me, or are you managing my land for you?”

Daughter Jill Buccola said, “Depriving us of our private property quickly diminishes our rights as Americans.”

A.J. Cruce of Duvall saw the proposed legislation as more of a “sneaking tax scheme to help finance a greedy, mismanaged King County.”

In one of the more impassioned speeches of the evening, Garry Schuler said, “Nobody here loves my property more than I do. Nobody in King County government can make a law more stringent than the rules I make for myself.

“The people from Audubon and 1000 (Friends of Washington) have the idea we don’t give a rip (about our land). We care more than you do.”

The executive’s proposed version of the CAO was thousands of pages long, all written in legalese.

“No way can citizens know all of these things and be law-abiding,” said County Councilwoman Kathy Lambert. “(These regulations) are confusing, even to elected officials. They are not even internally consistent.”

Lambert said, “If people don’t soon realize what they have to lose – property, retirement (nest eggs), and some of their freedoms – these things are going to be gone altogether.”

On Sept. 16, Chairman Constantine rolled out his amendments to the proposed CAO.

Constantine said, “We have much work to do if future generations are to still have a rural area to call home. … But today we’ve taken a significant step.”

Lambert called Constantine’s proposed changes “a baby step in the right direction.”

A few of the significant changes were these:

• On lots of five acres or smaller, owners could clear up to 50 percent, rather than the 35 percent in the Executive’s original proposal.
• For all lots of more than five acres, the clearing limit would be 2.5 acres or 35 percent, whichever is larger, which would preserve the ability of owners of lots of 5 to 7.5 acres to clear more than 35 percent.
• Areas legally cleared in past years will be grandfathered in; this will apply even in case of a change of use or addition of structures.
• Eliminates the “10 percent impacting impervious surface limit” aimed at preventing rainwater from running onto a neighbor’s property, and refocuses the effort to disperse and infiltrate water runoff onsite through the use of what are known as Best Management Practices.

In late September, county fire chiefs announced they had concerns about the legislation.

“We are concerned that the CAO may have adverse impacts,” said Bud Backer, deputy chief of Woodinville Fire and Life Safety District and president of the King County Fire Chiefs Association. “Who decides if a citizen can remove vegetation for fire prevention purposes? What if the fire department or district recommends clearing, but the county … disagrees? We see the potential for conflict between King County and ourselves.”

A county fire chiefs association press release quoted Harry Reinert of the county’s Department of Development and Environmental Services (DDES) as saying, “No permit is required to clear vegetation for fire safety, if carried out carefully.”

The “if carried out carefully” part needs to be defined, said Backer.

In the wee hours of Oct. 26, despite strident objections from six Republican county council members and hundreds of citizens residing in unincorporated King County, seven county council members, all Democrats, pushed through Executive Sims’ Critical Areas Ordinance by a majority of one.

“This poorly drafted legislation has been powered by pressure from urban special interests,” said County Councilman Steve Hammond, “who want to enact severe land-use restrictions on the politically vulnerable segment of the county. The majority of the council has not listened to the rural property owners, who actually steward the land.”

Councilwoman Lambert said, “Current laws are working; therefore, the cost to implement and monitor these extreme regulations is more than the county and our citizens can afford, with no proof that they will make a difference anyway.”

“Adoption of the Critical Areas Ordinances,” said Councilman Rob McKenna, “will unleash a torrent of lawsuits against King County. Having sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution, I cannot support these radical measures, which I believe violate the fundamental rights of rural property owners.”

The national nonprofit organization Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) jumped into the fray shortly after adoption of the CAO, announcing it would file suit against King County. Attorney Sam Rodabough of the foundation’s Northwest Center in Bellevue said, “Our goal is to invalidate portions of the ordinance that residents find particularly burdensome. Members of the King County Council and DDES – even the Department of Ecology – have more or less said that rural residents are the best stewards of the land.

“Yet they are the ones saddled with the entire regulatory burden. … Average Washingtonians might not understand all the nuances of the law,” said Rodabough, “but they do know egregious government conduct when they see it.”

On Nov. 5, Rodney McFarland on behalf of Citizens Alliance for Property Rights, vocal CAO opponents, filed the necessary paperwork to initiate the referendum process that would place the Stormwater, Clearing and Grading, and Critical Areas ordinances on the ballot to be accepted or rejected by unincorporated King County voters.

Executive Sims said in a prepared statement, “State statute and King County Charter says that the legislative body (King County Council) has the authority to make planning decisions under the state Growth Management Act. The King County Council adopted the Critical Areas Ordinance based on this authority, recognizing that land-use decisions like these have an impact on and affect the entire King County region. … We have worked with the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office and do not believe these planning decisions can be overturned by referendum.”

By Dec. 12, signature gatherers, who stood in rain and cold for long hours, acquired more than the needed 6,891 to place the three referenda on the March 2005 ballot.

But King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng, 1000 Friends of Washington and the Center for Environmental Law and Policy filed a legal challenge to stop the referenda.

The first hearing on the matter is Jan. 14, 2005.