By Claudia Riiff Finseth

A remarkable thing happened in the early 2000s under the Growth Management Act. A grassroots board of residents, community association members, school board members, the environmental community, the business community and the fire district created the Parkland-Spanaway-Midland Communities Plan.

The process was guided by Project Lead Sean Gaffney, of Pierce County Planning and Land Services. It was voted into law by the Pierce County Council in 2002. You’ve likely never heard of the Communities Plan, which is a real shame. It was not only created by your neighbors in a real democratic process, but it is the main document which protects your primary investment: your home and property. Since we are unincorporated, we have no mayor, no city charter, no city council to look out for our interests. What we have is the PSM Communities Plan, overseen by the PSM Land Use Advisory Commission (LUAC).

PSM Plan Boundary Map link.

A lot of us don’t know about our LUAC, either. Made up of volunteer fellow-residents, it hears proposals from developers who want to build in the area. The LUAC guards us against runaway or inappropriate development, which happened a lot before we had the Communities Plan, especially on Pacific and Portland Avenues. A crucial element of the Communities Plan is protection of our waterways and trees—an important reason many of us live here. The plan sets out the following as Natural Environment Policy Goals [p97]: “Ensure the natural resources, systems, beauty, and the resulting livability of the Parkland-
Spanaway-Midland region are protected, enhanced, and maintained for current and future
generations of residents. Ensure the conservation of all elements of the natural environment, including but not limited to the Clover-Chambers Creek aquifer, floodplains, lakes and streams . . . surface water, high groundwater, wetlands, fish and wildlife habitat . . . Restore and enhance those environmental resources and systems which are degraded so as to improve the livability of the Parkland-Spanaway-Midland region . . . Implement a system of open space that preserves the structures and functions of the natural environment and provides passive recreation opportunities to all segments of the community.”

Aren’t those all great goals? Who of us here doesn’t love to see the eagles, osprey and herons; the glint of water in our lakes and streams; the Garry oak canopy against the sky? These are the things of livability.
And clearly, these things help maintain our property values. Well, you know what? The Communities Plan also helps protect our drinking water. It states [p95] “Aquatic ecosystems are supported in part by the level of water quality. Pollution and sedimentation caused from human actions and land development activities decreases water quality, thereby reducing the overall function of the aquatic environment. Inappropriate activities also have the potential to contaminate groundwater supplies, which provide potable water supply to the majority of the plan area.”

And this now brings into question the wisdom of siting a high density development of any kind on the Spanaway Wetlands. That is why the Communities Plan designated the Wetlands ‘Residential Resource,’ a zoning meant to greatly limit development there. Many developers in our area hate the Communities Plan, and have been actively working to destroy it over the last two decades.

Our present County Executive, Bruce Dammeier, seems to be among them. When he could place his Executive Priority project, his tiny home village for the chronically homeless, on any large tract of open land in the county—or even divide it into smaller villages and have each of our twenty-some cities, towns and unincorporated areas take responsibility for helping the people in one small village—he wants to use the Spanaway Wetlands. Considering the Communities Plan’s protections, this is totally anathema. This is what the Communities Plan says specifically about wetlands [p96]: “Preserving the wetland areas that remain within the communities is a priority . . . While the County’s new Wetland Management Regulations do offer a significantly higher level of protection, enforcement of these regulations continues to be a problem. Illegal wetland filling is still occurring at an alarming rate . . .”

Among other degradation of the Wetlands, the Executive’s plan would bring a whopping 50,000
cubic yards of fill onto the Spanaway Wetland. Why does this have to happen? It does not. But Dammeier has strong ties to the development community. Could it be that this is the Executive’s attempt to gut the PSM Communities Plan?

This question has to be asked. Because, if we lose the Communities Plan, we lose the only thing specifically protecting us as residents of Parkland, Spanaway and Midland. We should all be greatly concerned.