Tri-City officials say state growth act limiting future school sites

A likely home for the Kennewick School District’s fourth high school sits off the western end of Reata Road.

The property isn’t big enough for a high school. The district could buy some neighboring land, but it’s outside the city’s urban growth boundary — preventing the school from tapping into city utilities including water and sewer service.

And district officials say they aren’t even sure if it’s legal to build a school on a parcel that’s partly inside the growth area and partly outside.

Even if that plan works, the school’s location at the extreme western edge of the district would make it isolated, driving up busing costs.

“It’s not a terrific site,” admitted Doug Carl, the district’s capital projects director, during a recent school board meeting.

Statewide, at least 25 school districts, including Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, are struggling to find suitable and affordable land for new schools.

Rapid growth and rising property values are part of it, but a big hindrance, school officials say, is the state Growth Management Act.

State lawmakers could change the act to allow exceptions for new schools, but one of the biggest proponents of the law said it needs to remain intact to protect the environment and agriculture, as well as promote efficient schools that minimize environmental impacts and congestion.

Preventing sprawl or killing growth

The Growth Management Act became law in 1990 in response to explosive growth and development throughout the state.

Designed to allow local governments to manage their growth based on statewide standards, it also created a state hearings board that considers alleged violations as well as petitions from cities to expand their boundaries.

Those boundaries are based on population, and they determine where city services are available and where urban development should happen.

Tim Trohimovich, legal counsel for Futurewise, an organization that advocates for growth management, said the law has done what was intended, concentrating growth in urban areas and preventing sprawl from eating up open spaces.

“We’re not seeing tremendous urban decay like we see elsewhere in the country,” he told the Herald.

But just as Tri-City school districts have struggled with the law, so have cities.

Kennewick wanted to expand its growth boundary south of Interstate 82 in 2014, specifically for industrial development. The Benton County commissioners initially agreed.

But Futurewise fought the city’s petition, saying Kennewick hadn’t proved the need to expand, and the county commission reversed its position last year, keeping the boundary just north of the interstate.

State Rep. Larry Haler, R-Richland, said the rejection killed economic development.

“These groups are not friends of our community,” Haler told the Herald, referring to Futurewise and other organizations that oppose the expansion of urban and suburban areas.

Trohimovich acknowledged problems have plagued some communities, but he contended that’s a result of local governments not evenly implementing the law and identifying the best uses for property within their urban boundaries before they are developed.

The cost of a thin line

School districts can build outside urban growth boundaries, and two Tri-City schools already operate without access to city utilities: Pasco’s Edwin Markham Elementary and Kennewick’s Cottonwood Elementary.

But that means the schools must have their own wells for water and fire suppression and septic or sewage processing abilities, potentially adding millions of dollars to the cost of new schools.

“It’s one thing to build an elementary school on a septic system,” said Kennewick Superintendent Dave Bond. “It’s quite another to build a high school on a septic system. We have no interest in doing that.”

Richland School District struggled to find land for its fourth middle school before working with West Richland to co-locate it with a new city facility off Keene Road.

Richland Board President Rick Jansons said the district is OK for the near term, but enrollment is growing and not all the open property it owns is within the city’s growth boundary.

“We own land that’s adjacent, that’s just on the wrong side of the street,” he said of one 20-acre parcel off Dallas Road.

The Pasco School Board recently agreed to buy about 10 acres for a future school in that city’s eastern end, adding to its inventory of property that could house elementary schools, and a west Pasco parcel big enough for a middle school.

But staying ahead of developers is a full-time job, said Randy Nunamaker, Pasco’s director of operations. He said large chunks of land, such as the 50 to 60 acres needed for a high school, are becoming scarce.

Kennewick board members and district administrators would rather build the district’s next high school, likely within the next decade or so, in Badger Canyon on open land near Cottonwood Elementary School and where many homes have been built in recent years.

Alternatively, there’s plenty of land south of Interstate 82. But all those locations are outside Kennewick’s urban growth boundary.

Trohimovich argued that there are hundreds of acres available north of I-82 for future schools in Kennewick. The district is building its 15th elementary school, Sage Crest, at the southern edge of the urban growth area.

Bond said the district looked at the open land between the interstate and Thompson Hill, but much of it isn’t suitable for building a school because of hills and valleys, or it’s far too expensive, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars an acre because of its marketability for homes.

Trohimovich suggested that if land is too expensive, districts should pursue obtaining it through eminent domain, a process by which cities can condemn and take possession of property citing a greater community need.

Bond called that a “repulsive answer” to getting land for schools, and it’s unlikely Kennewick’s board would ask city leaders to aid in that process.

Richland’s Jansons also rejected that option. “Futurewise lives in a different universe from the rest of us,” he said.

Seeking changes, facing obstacles

Tri-City school officials, and others around the state, are asking state lawmakers to grant exceptions to the Growth Management Act.

Richland Superintendent Rick Schulte has told his board that there are at least three bills in play in the state House so far this year that would allow schools to be built outside growth boundaries but still connect to utilities.

Bond said another bill would allow an exception if districts pay to have city utilities extended outside a growth boundary.

Haler and state Rep. Maureen Walsh, R-Walla Walla, said they support those efforts.

“There’s no malice here, people are just trying to do what is best for their communities,” Walsh said. “It’s absurd that the (Growth Management Act) is untouchable.”

But both acknowledged it’s unlikely any bill on that issue to pass this year because of the short legislative session and also because of pressure from groups such as Futurewise.

Trohimovich said his organization will fight any attempt to alter the law because it is needed to curb pollution driven by increased traffic from sprawling suburbs.

“Everyone in Washington wants clean air, right?” he asked. “If you build (outside urban growth areas), you’re not going to have clean air.”

While relief from the state’s land management law is unlikely to come this year, school officials remain hopeful that progress could come in the next session.

Walsh and Jansons said it may be the court order forcing the state to meet its obligations to educate Washington children that brings school districts relief from the Growth Management Act.

State education officials and other advocates for schools have called on the Legislature to comply with the McCleary decision to ensure districts have enough money to hire teachers and provide materials.

But space is also an issue, after a voter-approved initiative to reduce class sizes, as well as a drive to have full-day kindergarten and expanded preschool access. The thousands of additional classrooms those issues would require will need to go somewhere.

“If education is a paramount duty, then providing facilities is also a paramount duty,” Jansons said. “Something has to give.”

This story was originally published January 30, 2016 at 9:45 PM with the headline "Tri-City officials say state growth act limiting future school sites."