As Clark County races toward a court-ordered July deadline for its comprehensive plan update, conservation advocates say late-stage development proposals and political divisions have thrown the process into disarray.
Friends of Clark County (FOCC) President Ann Foster says the ongoing update to Clark County’s comprehensive growth plan has become bogged down by delays, political disagreements and last-minute proposals as county leaders race toward state Growth Management Act deadlines.
Foster said the organization has spent months evaluating not only urban growth area expansion requests, but also transportation, parks and climate-related portions of the county’s comprehensive plan update.
“There’s the parks plan, there’s transportation, there’s new climate act goals, there’s what, 11, 13, something like that, chapters that are all in process and need to be reviewed and compiled by July 24 at this point,” Foster said.
Foster added she believes county officials will likely seek additional time from the state before finalizing the update.
“We’re putting money on the fact that the county is going to go back to the growth management board and say, ‘We need more time.’ They won’t be able to pull it together,” Foster said. “I want to make it perfectly clear: It has nothing to do with any incompetency on the part of the staff. It’s all because of the councilors and they’re wafting in the wind.”
The comprehensive plan, required under Washington’s Growth Management Act, guides Clark County and its cities in planning for population growth, employment, housing and land use through 2045. The Growth Management Hearings Board previously ordered Clark County to complete its overdue update by July 31.
However, according to the county’s draft timeline, final approval of the comprehensive plan is expected by Oct. 23.
Last July, the Clark County Council approved a $155,003 agricultural lands study requested by county staff and leaders from Ridgefield and La Center to support potential urban growth area expansions. The study, which analyzed roughly 131,000 acres, pushed the plan beyond its original December 2025 deadline.
Foster said part of the difficulty stemmed from two newly elected county councilors entering office during a critical stage of the process.
“The Growth Management Act is a lot of moving parts and a lot of bits and pieces and to come up to speed in order to make pivotal decisions two years ago was a lot to ask,” Foster said.
At the same time, Foster said longtime residents and conservation advocates have spent years opposing expansion into agricultural and resource lands.
“Friends of Clark County and its friends have been voicing our opinions for three years,” Foster said. “Most of it in favor of preserving Clark County the way it is as much as possible — its open space and its resource lands.”
Foster specifically pointed to expansion requests from Ridgefield and La Center that emerged later in the planning process.
“The two cities in question, La Center and Ridgefield, all of a sudden raise their hands and say, ‘Oh wait, oh wait. We want to expand,'” Foster said. “And we want to expand in order to include one of these properties that these property owners want to sell us. But it’s ag land, so we want to de-designate that.”
According to Foster, those requests triggered additional legal and procedural requirements, including a countywide agricultural lands study. The study, which analyzed about 131,000 acres, delayed the comprehensive plan beyond its December 2025 deadline.
Foster added the results of that study aligned with concerns raised by preservation advocates.
“The ag study took place and came out to basically agree with the residents and the public opinion that, yes, this land is great land and we need to be farming it and we don’t need to develop it,” Foster said.
The Clark County Council voted 3-2 on April 28 to move forward with Alternative 2 as the preferred direction for the comprehensive plan update. The option keeps several city expansion requests under consideration, including proposals from Battle Ground, Ridgefield and La Center.
The requests from Ridgefield and La Center involve removing agricultural land designations to allow possible urban growth area expansions. Selecting a preferred alternative does not finalize expansions but allows them to remain under environmental review.
La Center officials previously stated the city needs additional land capacity to accommodate 2,096 projected housing units and 3,884 jobs through 2045. Ridgefield officials have cited allocations of 7,998 housing units and 9,375 jobs during the same period.
Foster also criticized the late introduction of transfer of development rights proposals, commonly referred to as TDRs.
“Pushing for the TDRs put another hurdle to completion because nobody knew what it did, nobody knew whether it could be done, you know, it caused another delay,” Foster said.
Foster said many residents were frustrated by the council’s April 28 decision.
“The council made a decision which on April 28th was extremely disappointing to us,” Foster said. “And we feel it was a real slap in the face to all the people that for the last three years had been sending in comments, testifying at council meetings, taking their time as long-time residents of Clark County who value Clark County the way it is and its naturalness,” Foster said.
When asked whether she believes the county council will ultimately reflect viewpoints commonly expressed during public testimony, Foster expressed skepticism.
“I’d like to think that the councilors would listen, but I think the majority is not,” Foster said. “I think they are listening, but they think they are listening to property owners, to city government, and other elected officials.”
The county’s comprehensive plan update remains under environmental review, with a final environmental impact statement expected later this summer.
