Thank you to reporter Lizz Giordano for The Herald’s May 30 article, “Expanded program protects even more farmland from sprawl.” Snohomish County’s Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) program is a very important tool for developers and farmers to use to protect our valuable farmland and keep farmers in business, while simultaneously ensuring density is built in the right places without sprawling into our rural areas.
One thing missing in this article was that the County Council changed the codes during the 2015 comprehensive plan update because of effective lobbying from the development community, which eliminated higher density rezones for single-family and multi-family subdivisions in all the urban growth areas as receiving areas for these farmland development rights.
This left only a few areas of Snohomish County outside of city jurisdictions as places developers could acquire more density as a trade-off for protection of the county’s last remaining farmlands. Mostly all that is left are the Urban Center areas and along Highway 99. While these are areas that should be taking in more growth, the fact is our urban growth areas are being developed at a rapid pace and needs to be included as receiving areas.
The Snohomish County Council has the responsibility to decide how our land is built out and how to protect our farms and forests. They need to change the TDR program back to require all upzones in the urban growth areas for residential and commercial uses, as well as any future urban growth area expansions, only be allowed using TDR credits to save our last remaining agricultural land.
Kristin Kelly
Pilchuck Audubon Society
Snohomish
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
