Pierce County sprawl causes too much time in cars, school buses. State can fix this

Our children understand perhaps better than we do the need to address climate change and rising housing insecurity before it’s too late.

Therefore it was ironic that Pierce County’s recent Towne Centers proposal did not plan for the next generation of high school and middle schools inside our Urban Growth Area. This contributes to the kind of sprawl that drives climate change.

During this state legislative session, our leaders have a chance to address these flaws in an update of the state’s Growth Management Act.

Proposed legislation sponsored by Futurewise will require our county and others around Washington to meet the state standard for greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce vehicle miles traveled.

These changes will set a regulatory framework that encourages the county to stop building schools in rural areas miles from Towne Centers. Such school development increases the miles that school buses and parents have to drive each morning.

Also included in the package is a change in land-use patterns to support walking and cycling to school and to bus stops.

Pierce County has long had plans for bike lanes for Spanaway and South Hill, but these still need funding. School kids as well as apartment dwellers need more than a gravel path to walk to the bus stop.

Some changes made to the Towne Centers proposal encourage walkable communities by incorporating transit oriented development. This begins next year in Parkland-Spanaway area.

Standards for affordable housing will also be reformed in the proposed update of the state’s Growth Management Act. The Pierce County planning department has been updating the county’s affordable housing policy for the County Council to examine this year.

New state standards will help an abundant diversity of housing become available for all.

This will be particularly helpful in parts of Spanaway where low-income housing is needed for senior citizens and high school graduates who want to live in the town where they graduated, instead of at home with their parents.

The proposed state legislation will also take a look at reversing the effects of racially discriminatory and exclusionary land-use policies. These policies will return local control of land-use decisions to the community — something missing in this year’s Towne Centers proposal.

In short, these legislative updates will ensure that the next series of community plans address urgent climate change and housing crises and incorporate residents into land-use planning.

You can participate in the legislative process by telling your state representatives how these changes will help Pierce County’s next planning update.

Join Futurewise’s Washington Can’t Wait campaign to help shepherd this legislation through Olympia in 2021.

Kirk Kirkland is a member of Futurewise., a longtime Tahoma Audubon Society member and a resident of Tacoma for nearly 50 years. .He has been involved in growth management planning in Pierce County for 25 years.