Our Voice: Exception from GMA for schools needed

Policy bills that failed to make it out of legislative committees by last Friday’s cut off are now dormant. For many of these proposals, this is just as well and lawmakers should continue to ignore them.

Others, however, address needed changes to current law and we would like to see them re-emerge next year with more support. Among them are bills that would allow new school construction outside of the state Growth Management Act.

Statewide at least 25 school districts including Kennewick, Richland and Pasco are struggling to find affordable and suitable land for future schools. Enrollments are climbing, but the acreage available to school districts within their community’s urban growth boundaries is diminishing.

Part of the solution is to get the law changed so that school districts can be the exception to the Growth Management Act, which limits where communities can build infrastructure for development.

The law was established in 1990 as a way to protect shorelines, forests, farmland and open spaces from urban sprawl. It sets up boundaries and requires local governments to follow state standards when managing growth and construction.

Its purpose is important, but there should be a better balance between protecting the environment and allowing communities to build new schools outside the boundaries when no other suitable location can be found.

School construction is different than private construction and should be treated as such.

Finding a good site for new high schools can be especially daunting, as they require about 50 to 60 acres and city services, unlike smaller elementary schools which can conceivably operate on a well and septic system.

It doesn’t help that the westside land-use advocacy group Futurewise appears intent on thwarting any attempt by communities to expand outside their designated growth boundary lines.

This group blocked plans last year by Kennewick to extend its urban growth boundaries south of Interstate 82 for industrial development. The organization’s attorney, Tim Trohimovich, has said Futurewise will fight any attempt to alter the law — schools included.

He argues that there is plenty of property available within the growth management boundaries, but communities are not identifying the best use for the land they have before developing it.

That isn’t a completely fair assessment. Much of the land available for school construction in Kennewick, for example, is either too hilly for school construction or the price tag is exorbitant because the property is prime real estate for homes.

The idea that a Seattle-based organization with no connection to our community is bent on preventing any negotiation of our urban boundaries is galling.

State Rep. Larry Haler, R-Richland, and state Rep. Maureen Walsh, R-Walla Walla, support efforts to cut school districts some slack and make them an exception to the boundary restrictions. A couple of bills in the House looked promising, but they didn’t survive this short session.

It will be a fight to bring them back next year with groups like Futurewise ready to block them, but lawmakers and school officials must still try.

This story was originally published February 8, 2016 at 5:07 PM with the headline "Our Voice: Exception from GMA for schools needed."