The La Center interchange, the Lagler dairy farm south of Brush Prairie, the Jennings Road area northeast of Washougal and farm-zoned land north of Washington State University Vancouver wouldn’t be allowed to develop under the ruling.

The Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board unanimously ruled that commissioners had failed to protect farmland and prevent urban sprawl, as required by the state’s Growth Management Act.

The decision can be appealed within 30 days to either the Thurston or Clark County Superior Courts.

The board also found that the county broke state rules by allowing development of 945 acres of agricultural land outside Ridgefield and Camas, including the Johnson dairy north of Lacamas Lake and the Kennedy dairy south of Ridgefield.

But Ridgefield and Camas have already annexed those areas, so under state law, the board has no authority to stop that development.

The state board upheld the rest of the 12,000 acre urban expansion, which is believed to be one of the largest — and maybe the largest — in state history.
Growth advocates downplayed the farmland ruling and said they’d fight it.

“The only thing that surprises me is that they didn’t just slap us around worse,” Commissioner Betty Sue Morris said. “They enjoy doing that.”

“I’m ready to appeal,” said Commissioner Marc Boldt.

“This hearings board has been wrong, according to the appellate courts, on the ag issues in the past,” said Steve Horenstein, an attorney for the Lagler family and other supporters of the plan. “It’s our opinion that they’re wrong again.”

Horenstein was among five private lawyers whose clients paid to help the county defend its plan.

Challengers happy

The decision all but guarantees that appeals of the growth plan will continue through November’s elections, in which Boldt faces reelection and after which Morris plans to retire.

Futurewise, the Seattle slow-growth group that challenged Clark County’s plan, was “pretty happy with the decision,” said spokeswoman April Putney.

“This is a great victory for preserving farmland,” said John Karpinski, a Vancouver environmentalist named as a petitioner in the case.

Keith Scully, the Futurewise attorney who argued against the plan before the state board in April, has since resigned to work for a for-profit law firm.

Commissioner Steve Stuart, who supported the growth plan but was outvoted last fall on an eleventh-hour attempt to include more farm protections, said he’d anticipated the state board’s objections.

“Not a huge surprise,” he said.

La Center fears impact

La Center lost about 575 acres of possible growth, including most of the land near the Northwest 319th Street interchange on Interstate 5.

La Center officials mounted a sustained effort to push their urban growth area west to the freeway. The goal is to attract industrial and commercial development as a way to diversify an economy almost entirely based on four nontribal cardrooms.

The cardrooms face an uncertain future because of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe’s plans to build a big casino complex along the west side of I-5. The casino site was removed from La Center’s growth area, but that decision will have no bearing on the federal casino review.

Dale Miller, La Center planner, said the hearings board removed all but the southeast quadrant of the freeway interchange from La Center’s growth area.

“It’s not catastrophic, but it’s up there,” he said.

Miller said the city council could decide to appeal the hearings board’s decision, but it will wait to see what commissioners do before making any decisions.
Lawyer sees opening

Rich Lowry, the county’s top land-use lawyer, suggested Thursday’s ruling might be vulnerable because it seemed to require that commercially significant farms never be developed, no matter how useful they’d be as part of the city.

“There is certainly nothing in the act that supports that in any express way,” Lowry said. “You can think of places in eastern Washington that ain’t got no place to expand except into ag. Under this decision, that city just got frozen.”

Lowry, 62, held a retirement party Tuesday and came to work Thursday hoping it’d be the last day of his career.

“It’s not what I was hoping for,” he said.

Michael Andersen covers Clark County government. Call him at 360-735-4508 or e-mail michael.andersen@columbian.com. Staff writer Jeff Mize contributed.