Beaver Creek Rezone Poses Threat
A request to rezone farmland to industrial land at the Maytown exit threatens Beaver Creek and rural County What is the “Beaver Creek Rezone”? In its latest iteration, Proponent view: BHAS view: Why is the Conservation Committee concerned about putting a distribution center/huge warehouse there? What has BHAS done so far about this? Photo credit: Oregon Spotted Frog (Rana pretiosa), by Kathleen Dobson, https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/154292080, distributed via Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
Industrial Lands Study
Warehouses or Farms in Our County? A County Study Points to Warehouses Charlotte Persons An important question for the Comprehensive Plan update, Thurston 2045, will depend on citizens’ values. We must decide what kind of development we want in the rural part of Thurston County during the next twenty years. Do we want to keep the codes based on the current Comp Plan and limit most industrial development in our rural areas to within one-half mile of I-5 interchanges? Or do we want industrial development, including mega-warehouse complexes, on land that is currently zoned for agriculture and rural residences? On December 6 the Board of County Commissioners heard a presentation by a contracted consultant on the Industrial Lands Study (ILS). The ILS makes many recommendations to make more industrial development possible in our rural county. See https://www.thurstoncountywa.gov/departments/community-planning-and-economic-development-cped/community-planning/industrial Stakeholder groups have not had the opportunity to vet the ILS, and the
Urban Trees Code Update
Next Steps, including YOURS, to Protect Thousands of Urban Trees Charlotte Persons The September issue of The Echo had a long article that explained the long term effects of the Washington Wildland-Urban Interface Code – the destruction of thousands of trees in Western Washington. Have Black Hills Audubon Society and other conservation organizations been successful in getting the code amended? Well, not yet! But we are closer to that goal. And YOU can help convince the SBCC to amend the code by signing the petition at https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/tree-loss-equals-more-forest-fires?source=direct_link& In brief, the WWUIC requires that the owners of new and existing residences use ignition-resistant building materials on the exteriors or create defensible space of 30, 50 or 100 feet around each residence. The WWUIC applies in intermix/interspace areas and wildlands (agricultural lands in Thurston County) designated by a WA DNR map—actually more than half of Western Washington. The net result over the