Clark County Citizens United, Inc. submitted two very important documents to the Clark County Council regarding resource land in Clark County. Combined, they tell the story as to how resource land was designated in 1977, and then in 1994, extending to 2004 and 2016. This data compels the county councilors to correct the 2016 Comprehensive Plan to assure all resource land designations in Clark County are compliant to RCWs and WACs mandated in the Growth Management Act.
The 1993 GIS metadata describes how the county chose all resource land for the 1994 Comprehensive Plan by just using aerial photos and current use tax status. Soils were not considered nor included. The GMA law states soils are the primary way for a county to know where the most productive resource land is located. The Legislature knew this and wrote those directions and mandates into the act. The county must first look at the NRCS Clark County soils manual and choose productive land that has prime and good soil. The county didn’t do this.
The second series of six pages describe how the county determined resource lands in 1977, for the 1979 Plan, using the NRCS soils manual and data which clearly describe what soils are prime, good, fair and poor. It tells what the county used for the designations and why. This information was at the fingertips of the county planners and commissioners in 1993 and for the 1994 plan (now the 2016 plan) because it was in the 1979 Comprehensive Plan. But all that data was ignored for a very different agenda of large-lot zoning of rural and resource land, regardless of the productivity of the land. The whole 1979 Comprehensive Plan was gutted and most of it ignored in 1994.
The county continues to be out of compliance with the Western Washington Growth Management Hearing Board as it relates to a countywide and area-wide re-evaluation of resource land in Clark County. Clark County citizens expect the county to use the correct data and correct the 2016 Comprehensive Plan resource land designations, to show they followed the law and determined resource lands according to the soil and other mandates of the GMA.
All landowners should find out what soil their land has by contacting the Clark County GIS or reviewing an original NRCS soils manual with maps. Only certain soils are acceptable for agriculture and forest.
