Evaluating effectiveness of Washington State's new comprehensive planning climate element
Overview
WA Comprehensive Plan update schedule. Starred counties are partially planning under the Growth Management Act and do not have mandatory Climate Elements.With funding from the Wilburforce Foundation and in partnership with the Washington Department of Commerce (WA Commerce), EcoAdapt is working to evaluate progress toward implementation of HB1181, a legislative measure passed in 2023 that amends the Growth Management Act to require local comprehensive plans to include a new climate element that includes both resilience and greenhouse gas mitigation measures, as well as climate-related updates to the transportation and land-use elements. WA Commerce is responsible for implementing the policy, and has released intermediate guidance while the Washington Administrative Code is being updated, as well as $30 million in funding to support the comprehensive plan updates for cities and counties required to make these changes in 2024 and 2025.
This research will explore how jurisdictions are using this funding to create and implement climate resilience goals and policies, and whether and how this funding is helping jurisdictions meet these goals.
Objectives
Objectives of this research include:
- Evaluating the process that these communities are using to incorporate climate change into their comprehensive plan updates in order to better understand whether they
- are able to apply the instructions and recommendations provided in the planning guidance, and
- are incorporating practices known to be associated with effective adaptation planning into their comprehensive plan update processes, including the consideration of conservation/open space; prioritization of nature-based solutions; incorporation robust community engagement; and integration diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice considerations, among others.
Project Activities
Project activities include:
- identify a subset of 25 communities that are going to engage in a comprehensive plan update in 2025, which will coincide with the first year that the WA COM will be requiring the addition of the climate element.
- Assess each community's process through a combination of interviews, surveys, and review of publicly-available materials (e.g., outreach and communication).
- Conduct an informal literature review to identify factors known to be associated with effective and equitable adaptation planning processes that are likely to lead to on-the-ground implementation of adaptation strategies and, ultimately, increased community resilience to climate change.
- Review the created comprehensive plans and climate elements to assess the results of their process in the context of the factors we identified through our literature review, with the goal of understanding how the guidance and funding provided by this policy can support community resilience.
Partners
Wilburforce Foundation
Washington Department of Commerce