Home2024 Comprehensive Planning

Overview (see updates below)

City of Tacoma Home in Tacoma update just in. See it below.

2024 Comprehensive Planning

This is the year in which major decisions will be made about each jurisdiction's future. Comprehensive plans must be adopted by the end of 2024 and won't be updated significantly again until 2034. New requirements for housing and climate change mitigation and resilience make these plans especially important.

The League is sponsoring workshops, presentations and other opportunities to support public engagement in the planning processes and ultimate decisions.

See a presentation on community engagement in comprehensive planning here.

See a workshop on developing comp plan testimony:
Recording here.
Power Point here.

Please see additional information below about the planning process and how you can engage.

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Comprehensive Planning is a topic near and dear to League of Women Voters

The League was instrumental in getting the original Growth Management Act, which requires local comprehensive plans, passed in 1990 and has advocated for healthy amendments to the law ever since. So it is important for our League to be involved in our local comprehensive plans.

In Pierce County, there will be many plans, one for each city and one for the unincorporated County. The first one League will be commenting on is the Pierce County Plan for unincorporated areas.

This year's planning is critical because of the intense need for housing to address homelessness and climate change mitigation and resilience strategies. New legislation has imposed different ways to develop on all jurisdictions. This year's plan affects the next 20 years, so it has to be a good plan.

This workshop will offer background on the proposed draft plan elements and demonstration of how to use the information to send comments. No one can be fully informed of the entire plan, so there will be tools to help participants focus on he issues most important to them.

The sample letter is here. Plan summaries will be added before the workshop on Saturday.

See the workshop recording here. (PW: hqqJ^g@0)

See the workshop presentation power point here.

See We Need More Housing in Washington State, WA State Department of Commerce, here.

See Pierce County 2024 Housing Targets here.

The WA State Department of Commerce monitors local comprehensive plans. See Commerce checklists and much more here.

See Pierce County's Comprehensive Planning Process
here

Public Engagement begins in January 2024.
Sign up to get updates here.

See Lakewood's Comprehensive Planning Information here

See the planning timeline and more on that page.
See the November 15, 2023 presentation on new housing rules here.

See Puyallup's Comprehensive Plan Update information here.

The process description and schedule are here.

See Gig Harbor's Comprehensive Planning information here.

Sign up to get project updates here.

Updates

City of Tacoma Update

The Home In Tacoma – Phase 2 Draft EIS was released on February 5, 2024 and is available for public comment through March 8, 2024.
Get information about the Draft EIS and the proposals here.

See the comments made on behalf of LWVTPC here.

Pierce County Update

Review and comment on the Draft County Plan here by 4:30 pm, February 26. Get the draft documents here.

See this power point presentation about the proposed alternatives for the Pierce County comprehensive plan EIS that will be the subject of the Planning Commission's public hearing on February 26.

To make review and comments easier, here are summaries of selected draft Comprehensive Plan elements:

See Downtown on the Go perspective here.

See the comment letter sent for LWVTPC here.

City of Puyallup Update

Get other updates here.

Watch for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which will go to the City Council in late spring. Growth targets must be met over the next 20 years. These include adding approximately 15,000 jobs and 7482 new housing units and were developed in work with Pierce County. EIS alternatives will include:

No Action (essentially staying with the current course). Note that this outlook of continuing on the current course will not meet State Environmental Policy Agency (SEPA) requirements.
Growth in select areas, such as downtown.
Distributed growth. Middle housing must be included per the State requirements.

See the Existing Conditions Analysis here.

Capital Facilities Plan - The Capital Facilities Plan (CFP) Element addresses services that are essential to a community and its ability to grow. Read it here.

Get updates here.

See article about City of Puyallup Multi-Family Tax Exemption Action on 1-5-24 here.

City of Lakewood Update

Get other Comp Plan Updates here.

Upcoming Public Housing Meetings
There are two upcoming public meetings about the changes to what types of housing Lakewood must allow on historically single-family lots. These changes will be going into effect in early 2025, but the process for the City to discuss these changes is going on now.

January 23, 2024 at 5:30 pm; Ft. Steilacoom Park Pavilion (8714 87th Ave SW) or via ZOOM link here: Meeting ID 879 9429 3830.
February 28, 2024 at 5:30 pm; Clover Park Technical College Rotunda (4500 Steilacoom Blvd, Building 3) or via ZOOM Link here: Meeting ID 890 1796 2018.

City of Gig Harbor Update

Public Noticing and Hearings are scheduled for June 2024. The Plan will anticipate 14,299 residents and 15,602 jobs by 2044. Get more information about planning assumptions and data here.

Housing Plan Elements and Needs Assessment are here.

Public Outreach Results from 2023 are here.

Update from Department of Commerce

Commerce has released intermediate climate planning guidance to assist local governments in developing a climate element, as required by recent state law (HB 1181 (2023)). A city or county may integrate climate mitigation and resilience goals and policies into a single element of the comprehensive plan or within several elements such as housing, transportation, and land use.

The intermediate guidance is available here.

The new climate element includes two sub-elements:

A greenhouse gas emissions reduction sub-element that is mandatory for 11 of the state’s largest and fastest-growing counties and their cities (only those with over 6,000 population) and requires mitigation measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and per capita vehicle miles traveled.
A resilience sub-element that is mandatory for all jurisdictions planning fully under the Growth Management Act. A natural hazard mitigation plan in substantial conformance with the guidance could be adopted, by reference, to satisfy the requirements.

Get more information here.