A coalition of farmland protection advocates has appealed Pierce County’s decision to let Sumner expand its growth boundaries into 182 acres of protected soil.
“The county’s own studies show that Sumner and Pierce County already have enough land in the urban growth area for all of their needed growth,” said Tim Trohimovich, planning and legal director for land-use group Futurewise. “There is no need to expand onto prime farmland.”
Futurewise was joined in the appeal by the American Farmland Trust, the Friends of Pierce County, the Tahoma Audubon Society and the PCC Farmland Trust. It was filed Wednesday with the state Growth Management Hearings Board.
The Pierce County Council voted in October to give Sumner the latitude to pursue a plan known as Orton Junction. It will allow a mixed-use development south of Sumner with shops, medical facilities, homes and a YMCA.
The county Planning Commission turned it down in a split vote in July, but County Council members later revived it. An agreement crafted this fall by the city, land-conservation group Forterra and developer Michael Corliss would increase by at least 500 acres the amount of farmland to be preserved permanently elsewhere in the county.
County officials have called the compromise a “green wall” against further urban sprawl. In a statement late Wednesday, the appealing land-use groups called it “a shell game.”
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