Clark County Council discusses population

There’s no doubt that Clark County’s population is growing, but how quickly will it grow in the next 20 years?

That is the question the county council and Community Development department will try to answer in the coming weeks as the county moves forward with 2025 Comprehensive Growth Management Plan update.

The county council will host a work session and public hearing this month to accept public testimony and select a 2045 population projection from the range provided by the Washington Office of Financial Management. The work session begins at 9 a.m. Wednesday in the Public Service Center sixth-floor hearing room at 1300 Franklin St., Vancouver. Staff will brief the county council during the session, but public comment will not be accepted.

The public hearing begins at 6 p.m. April 18 and will also be held at the Public Service Center. Public comment will be accepted at the hearing. Both meetings will be held in a hybrid format. Attendees can join in person or join online via WebEx. The April 18 hearing can also be watched live on CVTV channel 23/323 and will be available for viewing later at CVTV.org.

During a March 28 informational session on the comp plan update, Community Planning Director Oliver Orjiako explained the importance of setting the population numbers.

“Population, as well employment and housing allocations, for each city and town for the 20-year planning period can be determined after this countywide population projection has been selected,” Orjiako told the council.

Every five years, the Office of Financial Management provides a range of 20-year population projections for all counties in the state with low, middle and high projections for each county. Clark County’s high population forecast for 2045 is 791,809, the middle forecast is 698,416 and the low forecast is 576,151. According to state law, the middle range represents the most likely estimate of a county’s population.

For the high forecast, that’s an increase of 52 percent from the county’s most current population numbers of 520,900, 34.1 percent for the middle forecast and 10.6 percent for the low end of the range.

For information on how to attend the meetings and provide testimony go to https://clark.wa.gov/councilors/clark-county-council-meetings.

Meeting materials can be found at https://clark.wa.gov/community-planning/2025-update-meeting-and-event-information.