Engrossed HB 1653 Will Protect Existing Shoreline Uses & Ag Activities

REVISED Bill Provides Protection for Shoreline Uses & Ag Activities

Action Requested: Ask Senators to Pass EHB 1653

Go to Washington Farm Bureau's Action Center to send a message today.

HB 1653 has been REVISED to include language that protects existing uses and activities in shoreline areas. The bill is now known as ENGROSSED House Bill 1653.

The bill must be passed to provide protection from critical area ordinances interfering with legally existing uses and structures.

The old bill has been struck - it is gone.  What we have now is a negotiated replacement that protects legally existing uses and activities and even provides a path to modify or redevelop those legally existing uses and activities. New uses and structures are not prohibited by the legislation.

Please contact your state Senator and ask him or her to vote to PASS ENGROSSED House Bill 1653 as amended and passed by the House.

Go to Washington Farm Bureaus Action Center to send a message today.

Background:

The Dept. of Ecology recently issued "guidance" to local governments that they have the option to reach into shoreline jurisdiction with their critical areas ordinances until the time that their shoreline master programs (SMP) are updated and approved by Ecology.

The Attorney General then issued an opinion saying that Ecology has the authority to issue that guidance.  The AG reasoned that a 4-1-4 Supreme Court ruling, followed by two Court of Appeals cases that appear to be in conflict, left the situation unclear and that the guidance was acceptable.

There is no dispute that there will be distinct authority between the SMA (shoreline management act) and GMA (growth management act) once the local government SMP is updated and approved. The approval of the SMP by Ecology is a function of existing law.

Some counties are already there, having recently updated their SMPs.

In the past, local governments have adopted regulations and buffers that have left existing uses and activities as "nonconforming" uses.  That designation immediately damages the use and value of the property.

If your "nonconforming" building burns down, you might not be able to replace it. If you change your "nonconforming" use, you might lose the ability to have any use at all. And you certainly could not make significant modifications or redevelopments of those "nonconforming" uses.

The bottom line is this: The Ecology guidance, backed by the Attorney General Opinion, has left property owners unprotected from local governments that would choose to regulate in the shoreline areas via their critical areas ordinances (GMA).

WE CANNOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN!  That's why we must PASS ENGROSSED House Bill 1653 as amended and passed by the House.

Washington Farm Bureau, Washington Association of Realtors, the Association of Washington Business and others who believe in property rights and protecting business have negotiated language that protects existing uses and activities from these interim ordinances.  This language not only protects legally existing uses and activities, but allows an option to modify or redevelop those uses and activities. 

Neither of those protections exists for property owners if Engrossed HB 1653 AS PASSED BY THE HOUSE does not pass the Senate.

Many people have reacted to the language in the original HB 1653 (and SB 5726).

Those bills are dead, in part because Washington Farm Bureau, the Realtors, and AWB led the charge to kill those bills in 2009.  The language in those bills was totally unacceptable - that's why the striking amendment was adopted this year by the House.

A striking amendment REPLACES the previous bill.  It reads: "Strike everything after the enacting clause and insert the following..."

That's what we did! We "struck" the bad bill and replaced it with something that protects the right of use, the value, and the ability to modify, legally existing uses and activities on private property in the shoreline areas.