Bill allowing schools outside urban growth areas moves on to House

A bill to allow school districts in a few counties, including in the Mid-Columbia, to more easily build new schools outside urban growth boundaries has survived the state Senate and is moving on to the House.

The legislation, called SB 6426, would change state land planning regulations to classify schools as essential public buildings, making them eligible to have city services such as water and sewer extended to properties outside urban growth areas.

A tailored amendment limited the exemption to just a few districts, including Benton, Franklin, Grant and Pierce counties.

The bill is meant to help districts with fast growing student populations that are faced with shrinking inventories of available land inside established growth areas.

Supporters said that they still expect opposition to the bill from those in favor of limiting sprawl and protecting open spaces. They are happy, though, to see it moving forward and are convinced lawmakers will ensure it will be narrowly applied and not cause communities to gobble up land any faster.

“We’re very pleased it’s still alive,” Richland Superintendent Rick Schulte said. “In a short session like this, many bills get dropped simply for lack of time.”

School districts are limited to building new schools within their communities’ urban growth boundaries.

The state’s Growth Management Act, passed in the late 1990s, prohibits extending city-owned utility services outside those boundaries in an effort to limit sprawl, preserve farmland and natural areas and promote efficient transportation and other services.

But Tri-City school district officials say it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find land for new schools as housing and commercial development accelerates.

Many available parcels aren’t big enough for middle or high schools, facilities that Kennewick and Richland school officials are expecting to need in the coming decade. Pasco officials also have said there’s a dearth of sizable properties.

Schulte and other school officials are working with state legislators on bills to craft an exception to the state rule.

While Schulte, Kennewick Superintendent Dave Bond and others spoke in favor of the bill during a Senate hearing, land management advocate Futurewise and the American Planning Association opposed it, saying it would disrupt local community planning efforts.

“The people who are for the GMA are going to fight any erosion of it,” Bond recently said to the Kennewick School Board.

Builder groups, while not fans of the Growth Management Act, also have said they oppose giving schools an exception to building outside urban growth areas because it leads to an uneven playing field for contractors and others in construction and real estate.

But the bill had strong approval in the Senate, passing 35-13. Mid-Columbia senators Sharon Brown, R-Kennewick, Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, and Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, supported it.

House members from the area, such as state Reps. Larry Haler, R-Richland, and Maureen Walsh, R-Walla Walla, have said in the past that they support easing the burden on districts looking for future school sites.

Schulte said that it is a short legislative session and that time is running out to get the legislation through the House and to Gov. Jay Inslee. The 60-day session is supposed to wrap up by March 10. However, even if the effort falls short this year, it will have built a great groundwork ahead of the next full legislative session, officials said.

“If we can show that this won’t lead to sprawl, protects the environment and kids will still walk to school, I think people will be on board,” Schulte said.

This story was originally published February 25, 2016 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Bill allowing schools outside urban growth areas moves on to House."