Observing Government

On 4/27 the Clark County Council held a hearing to select a ‘Preferred Alternative’ for the Comprehensive Plan. Meeting materials can be found here: 2025 Update Meeting and Event Information | Clark County The Cities were all given a chance to speak (most did) as were interested Boards and Commissions (3 did) and the public. 36 people commented, 19 in favor of an alternative in which Agricultural Lands are protected, and there is no change to the current Urban Growth Boundaries (UGB). There were also concerns voiced about expanding boundaries when the county hasn’t completed the infrastructure required to support their prior boundary expansions (specifically around 179^th st). Of the others, there were property owners standing to benefit if their properties were included in a UGB and development interests standing to benefit from development of those properties. Significant written testimony was also submitted. 2025 Update Public Comment | Clark County. It is clear that outside of those who stand to profit, there is little public support for urban boundary expansion over farmland in the county. One of the mayors even stated that the Ag properties they want to annex were brought into the discussion by the property owners.

The hearing was continued to 4/28 for councilor deliberations.

Here is a link to the Alternatives table for reference: 2026-0108 Preferred alternative selection table The 3 Alternatives contain the things that were studied in the Draft Environmental Impact Study (DEIS) based on prior council and planning commission meetings and hearings. Alternative 1 – no change – is required by the Growth Management Act (GMA). Alt 2 included city and staff proposals, Alt 3 added additional items from the cities, none of which were recommended by staff or the Planning Commission (PC). The PC recommendations are included in the document. The PC went through the Alternatives line by line, so while it closely aligns with Alternative 2, there were some variances.

Below is what was proposed by Matt Little and adopted in a 3-2 vote (Little, Yung, Belkot vs. Marshall, Fuentes).

It largely supported the PC recommendations (including de-designating Ag by La Center and Ridgefield, and expansion of the Battle Ground UGB west to Dollars corners)

EXCEPT: 

• Meadow Glade is removed from Battle Ground UGB (the city wanted this)
• The dependency on creating a Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) program in order to de-designate Ag was removed. There is no longer even a pretense that other farmland will be protected in return for the Ag land they are de-designating.
• 3B from Alt 3 - Ag land next to Camas - is included (the PC recommended against). 

Consequences:

• The County is already out of compliance with the Growth Management Act due to missing the 12/26 deadline. This is mostly a result of deciding at the last moment to do a county-wide Agricultural Lands Study (costing $200k). The cities of La Center, Ridgefield, and Camas had pushed this, and got the support of Belkot, Yung, and Little knowing it would delay our Comp Plan. Doing this study was done in order to allow de-designation of any Ag Lands. (The study, demanded by the 3 cities, did not support de-designation of any Ag Land but instead suggested thousands of acres of Rural land should be designated as Ag.) Discussions on the inclusion of TDRs further delayed progress on the comp plan. In addition to the costs of staff time, consultants, and legal expenses, this will cost the county grants and low cost loans it is ineligible for while non-compliant. For reference, that came to around 10 million dollars in the 2016 comp plan cycle.
• The county will lose hundreds of acres of farmland that cannot be replaced, outside of Camas, La Center, and Ridgefield.
• The recommendation from the planning commission had included a provision, proposed by the cities of Ridgefield and supported by Camas and La Center, to develop a TDR program and prevent development of the Ag Land ceded to those cities until the developers were able to buy development rights from other farm owners, thus protecting those lands in return. This requirement has been removed.
• Until the comp plan is completed, and all appeals resolved, nothing in it can be implemented. This will delay actions by the other cities.
• What’s next?
• Here is the updated project schedule: 2025-comprehensive-plan-update_project-timeline-updated-4-28-2026.pdf showing a 10/23/26 completion date, which begins the 60 day appeal period to the GMA board. Reminder the plan was originally due December of last year.
• It is extremely likely the County’s comp plan will be appealed and that they will lose. They have lost on appeal in prior comp plans for attempting to illegally and unnecessarily de-designate Ag Land. In addition to the Ag Study finding that the land in question is farmland of statewide significance, the county’s own data shows that the forecasted growth can be accommodated within the existing UGBs. The county’s counsel and staff have been warning Council of this for some time. While Matt said “we’ll get sued no matter what”, it is worth noting that the development interests have never won against the county.