Climate Alliance for Affordability and Rural Lands
Olympia, WA
For a sustainable future and for housing affordability, we need our Thurston County jurisdictions to agree to build up, not out. We need them to plan for dense, walkable urban neighborhoods near the urban core. This reduces driving and greenhouse gases and increases affordability. It costs on average $10,000 per year to own and operate a car. Right now, the only walkable neighborhood in Thurston County is downtown Olympia.
But jurisdictions are instead planning for dense walkable neighborhoods in rural areas. Example: the "Bar Holdings UGA Swap" proposal to build over 200 new housing units, grocery store, YMCA, office buildings, and storage facilities on 33 acres of rural land south of the Olympia Airport. This type of development far from the urban core increases driving and greenhouse gases and reduces affordability. The problem is that developers are pushing this idea because developers believe they can now use 2022 legislation (the "UGA swap law") to buy rural land on the cheap and then move the land into the Urban Growth Area and develop it. As a result, no rural land near an Urban Growth Area is safe from being developed or from being surrounded by development.