Tumwater Planning Commission discusses 2025 Comprehensive Plan

The Tumwater Planning Commission shared updates on their 2025 Comprehensive Plan – with a focus on conservation, climate, and development code updates – yesterday, October 24.

The Comprehensive Plan of a city must undergo a Growth Management Act (GMA) periodic update every ten years.

For the current cycle, the city has started working on the updates since early fall, and it is required to finish the update by June 30, 2025.

Conservation

The conservation element of the plan contains guidelines to ensure the viability of natural resource industries and activities.

“The Growth Management Act requires that the city demonstrate that each element in the plan meets the 15 planning goals. The two goals required are related to conservation in the Growth Management Act, our natural resource industries, and the environment,” Tumwater Planner Alex Baruch explained.

The 2016 conservation element addressed natural resource lands (agricultural, forestry, and mineral lands), critical areas (wetlands, aquifer recharge areas, frequently flooded areas, geologically hazardous areas, and fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas), and incorporated the best available science.

“Topics that we anticipate needing to address in the 2025 update include updating all the maps, the current data, discuss how the Habitat Conservation Plan affects the designation of conservation land and protects species and habitat, update critical areas sections as required by the checklist, referenced greenhouse gas emission targets that will be included in the new climate element, and add references to plans completed since the last update, such as the Shoreline Master Program, Thurston Climate Mitigation Plan, and Urban Forestry Management Plan,” Baruch said.

Climate

“The climate element is going to be focusing on reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that are resilient in the face of climate change,” Tumwater Planning Manager Brad Medrud said.

In May 2023, a new climate change and resiliency goal was added to the Growth Management Act after Governor Jay Inslee signed HB 1181.

This bill requires cities to update the Climate Element by June 25, 2025, and address the climate change and resiliency goal in the Comprehensive Plan's Conservation, Land Use, and Transportation Plan Elements.

“We need to prioritize greenhouse gas reductions in overburdened communities. That means looking at our land uses, where we're looking atvadjacency to residents that are overwhelmed, overburdened, etc. We need to be doing that kind of evaluation process,” said Medrud.

Development Code

Yesterday, the commission discussed state requirements for development code updates and proposed local amendments.

“When you go to build and figuratively use a new facility or control facility or whatever, the development code is where we translate the policies,” said Medrud.

For this cycle, the required State Amendments for the Development Code Element are Affordable Housing, Clean Energy, Climate Change, Critical Areas, Impact Fees, and Organic Materials Management.

Some of the amendments included under the state amendments above are Design Review Standards and Residential Density Review for affordable housing, reducing light pollution for clean energy, the Climate Element update, and Critical Areas Regulations update.