Keeping up with growth: Local governments criticized as residents say planning, funding of infrastructure falling behind

May 9-Clark County's rapid growth over the past few decades has meant more traffic on the roads, more homes and apartments in neighborhoods, and more demand for water, sewer and electric utilities. Some residents question whether local governments are doing all they should to ensure infrastructure is keeping pace with that growth.

For Vancouver resident Shawn Hartmann, what was once an easy drive to his Southeast 40th Circle home in the Village at Fisher's Landing neighborhood has instead become an obstacle course. He has to dodge potholes, kids on bikes, pedestrians and oncoming traffic. Hartmann worries the road's deterioration will lead to a fatal crash.

"This road has really become overcrowded. Most houses have two to three vehicles, and then there's all the delivery vehicles that come through - Amazon, UPS, FedEx and all that," he said. "The road is just kind of breaking apart. The reason for that is that it's only 2 inches thick versus the 4-inch standard that Vancouver requires."

Hartmann said heavy equipment used to build new townhomes in the neighborhood further damaged the road. Although city officials acknowledge the pavement is failing, they have no plans for repairs.

The state's Growth Management Act requires that road, water, sewer and other infrastructure improvements needed to accommodate development occur at the same time as that development - a provision known as "concurrency." Cities and counties use impact fees charged for residential, commercial or industrial projects to pay for those upgrades. The one-time fees ensure new development pays its proportionate share but do not include fixing existing infrastructure deficiencies.

Rebecca Kennedy, deputy director of Vancouver's community development department, said infrastructure upgrades are thoughtfully managed through the city's capital facilities plan, as required by the Growth Management Act.

"These are projects that are well defined, known and have ... financing plans,"Kennedy said. "Then, there is a seven-to-20-year list, which are projects that are farther out. You still have to demonstrate that you have funding sources to pay for facilities and services, but it's less specific."

She said the capital facilities plan is updated annually, with completed projects removed and new projects added once funding is identified.

"Most of the time, when you see development, the development is going to pay traffic impact fees, and they're also going to pay for frontage improvements. That's largely how we get sidewalk infill," Kennedy said.

Planning for transportation improvements usually focuses on ensuring emergency responders can get where they need to in a timely way, she said.

"What you have to be able to demonstrate is that you can serve the growth that you're planning for, and you can do it at the level of service ... you've established as your target," Kennedy said.

What a city or county sets as a target, she said, may not be what residents were used to prior to rapid growth.

And Clark County has seen lots of that over the past 20 years. Between 2010 and 2020, the county's population grew from around 425,000 residents to 503,000, a total increase of about 18 percent or 1.17 percent annually. Current estimates from the state's Office of Financial Management put the number of residents living in the county at 542,000. By 2045, that number is expected to reach 718,000.

All those new residents will need someplace to live and work. The county is expected to add nearly 104,000 new housing units, as well as 88,000 new jobs, by 2045. Much of that housing and jobs growth will be in cities like Ridgefield, Battle Ground and Camas, as well as the unincorporated parts of the county.

Residents in unincorporated areas already are raising concerns about infrastructure improvements. Heidi Pozzo and David Gilroy are just two of dozens of residents living in the Mount Vista area near Northeast 179th Street who are petitioning the county to reconsider residential and commercial zoning changes approved in the area.

Clark County has approved 17 housing development projects along the Northeast 179th Street corridor, resulting in a significant increase in traffic, residents said. Additionally, seven independent traffic studies have all found that roads and intersections across the corridor are at or even past capacity, they said.

Although the county has undertaken roadwork along Northeast 179th Street, residents say the improvements won't solve the existing problems.

"If you've lived in this area for a while, you've had to navigate partial road closures or the kind of closures where you sit there for 15 minutes while they do some digging and then you get to go through and then they stop traffic again, or there's full closures for a while," Pozzo said. "It's been going on for a long time."

Much of the new development and improvements on Northeast 179th Street came after the county council gave the green light by lifting an urban holding designation there in 2019.

Other road-improvement projects for the area have been delayed. Pozzo said the county only sought to secure funding within six years, which complies with the letter of the law, but not to actually complete construction in that time frame.

"Will the road improvements that were initially envisioned be sufficient? I couldn't find any analysis on that whatsoever," she said.

The petition from Pozzo and other residents seeks an independent traffic-safety assessment before additional development is allowed; concurrency requirements based on present road conditions rather than future expectations; complete street standards - including sidewalks, bike lanes and street lights - before approving development; and a funded, committed timeline for the infrastructure improvements.

Clark County declined to respond to requests for comment for this story. According to a March staff presentation, the county sets level-of-service standards for roads by comparing the volume of expected traffic to the capacity of the road. The capacity is defined as the volume of traffic the roads can handle before congestion occurs.

"Using that information, projects are prioritized to ensure the concurrency requirement is met, i.e., the level of service at that location meets the standard within six years," according to the presentation.

When the urban holding designation was lifted from the 179th Street area in 2020, that didn't mean road improvements had to be completed by 2026. Rather, the six-year requirement is a rolling one based on the pace and scale of development, and where and when data show the level of service will drop below adopted standards, according to the county.

Pozzo said Clark County did not have - and still does not have - a plan in place to fully fund all of the road improvements planned for the 179th Street area. She said the county was relying on grants and impact fees from future developments.

"There were conversations at the time that said, 'Well, if we run short of money, we can just borrow from this other fund,'" Pozzo said. "The funding wasn't really in place, so there wasn't actually a plan to complete the construction."

This story was made possible by Community Funded Journalism, a project from The Columbian and the Local Media Foundation. Top donors include the Ed and Dollie Lynch Fund, Patricia, David and Jacob Nierenberg, Connie and Lee Kearney, Steve and Jan Oliva, The Cowlitz Tribal Foundation and the Mason E. Nolan Charitable Fund. The Columbian controls all content. For more information, visit columbian.com/cfj.

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