May. 23, 2005

Thinking globally while zoning locally

Stanford University
May 24, 2005

Thank you for the opportunity to come here tonight and talk about such an important subject. You are an impressive group and have been catalysts for change to protect and conserve our natural resources, and after today's gathering are capable of even greater things in the future. It is an honor and a privilege to share with you tonight some of the things happening in King County.

As a leader of a local government, my remarks are all about thinking globally while zoning locally. Local governments can make a difference in preserving and protecting our environment. It can be done. It must be done. It has been done. Psychologist Abraham Maslow said:"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."

I think most of you agree that we who care about the environment and who are working to protect it are often pounding away at the same problems with the same messages and tools. Preservation and regulation have been our nails. For conservation to succeed in the future, we need living landscapes. Forests and farmlands cannot be fallow gardens to urbanites. We need to move beyond preservation and regulation. The new nails we need are market forces and living landscapes. At the same time, we need to let someone other than government to swing the hammer. We need to get beyond the thought that only governments and new taxes can do the job. That's why this meeting is exciting and shows a trend developing in conservation in America.

In King County we are fortunate to have regional leaders who have undertaken the most ambitious conservation effort in the nation: a $7 billion, 100-year plan to set aside over a million acres of forest, farmland and open space in the four largest counties in the state. It's called the Cascade Agenda and is all about using market forces to preserve our irreplaceable natural resources. A driving force behind the Cascade Agenda is The Cascade Land Conservancy's Gene Duvenoy, who has been a critical partner with King County in some of our most significant land acquisitions. Gene is here tonight, and I'd like him to stand up so we show our appreciation for the innovative work he has done.

As the leader of the county that is the State of Washington's population and economic center, I have made conservation a strategic centerpiece of my administration for all the obvious environmental reasons but I am also driven by additional policy reasons I'll share with you in a minute.

First, I want to tell you about King County. It is astoundingly beautiful, reaching from the shores of the Puget Sound in the west to the summit of the Cascade Mountains in the east. It's a place where the environmental ethic runs strong. People recycle at a high rate and vote overwhelmingly for taxes to support parks and buy open space.

We are roughly the size of Delaware and in King County's two thousand square miles we have:

• 3,000 miles of streams
• 100 miles of marine coastland bordering Puget Sound
• 1,000 square miles of forestland
• 4 major river systems
• 975 wetlands
• 760 lakes and reservoirs

We are home to 1.8 million people including Seattle, the largest city in the region, and home to world leaders in technology, aviation and biotech. We have 30 percent of the population and 40 percent of the jobs for the entire state making us the economic engine for the state. And while we are the most densely populated area of Washington, we are also the most effective at stopping sprawl.

We have slowed residential building activity to 8 percent in rural areas since 1995 when we passed a groundbreaking Comprehensive Plan that established an urban growth boundary. In the last three years, it's gotten even better: We are now seeing only 4 percent of our overall growth in the County go into the rural area. This is the best in the state. None of the other urban counties come close.

King County is an interesting mix of urban and rural.
Seattle is hip, vibrant and lively, yet Seattleites and residents in cities throughout the county show a deep appreciation for the environment, our rural areas and all that they add to our quality of life. They appreciate the fact that they can hop in their car and be at a strawberry farm in a half hour or all the way to a ski slope in just under an hour.

We have been blessed with natural beauty, a strong and recovering economy that has made us a desirable place to live.

We are fighting hard to preserve our natural resources and a quality of life that is bound to that landscape. Yet, yesterday's forests are today's suburbs. Many streams that once were filled with water now suffer from pollution and low water levels. Wild chinook salmon are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act and there is new evidence that PCB's are the cause of the dwindling number of Orca whales in Puget Sound.

When I look to the future and what I must do to leave a legacy as bountiful as that left to me, I see climate change and public health as two serious threats to the people of King County that my administration must address. Land use planning is public policy tool that offers solutions to both of these challenges.

I believe global warming is a real and devastating threat to our environment and economy. If we don't change course, this is what our future looks like in King County and the Puget Sound communities of Western Washington:

The Climate Impacts Group at the University Of Washington has reported that increasing global temperatures will cause a nearly sixty percent reduction in the Cascade Mountain snowpack within fifty years.

That streams that allow our robust wild salmon populations to spawn will dry up during critical summer and fall periods. Stream temperatures will increase, directly killing fish or indirectly fostering diseases that will have the same effect. Our as they bluntly pointed out to us, maintaining the status quo will bring to extinction our wild salmon pouplations.

Our ability to stem the degradation of our rivers and streams will be imperiled. Fifty there percent of our fresh water bodies and forty two percent of our marine estuaries did not meet the State Of Washington standards for fishable and swimmable waters.

Real, functioning ecosystems will only exist as scattered natural "preserves," under constant pressure to yield their resources to industries selling them for profit.

Fresh food—such as fish—will be produced in farms, due to the degradation of the natural environment, and the reduced amount of productive habitat because of prolonged and widespread drought, as well as changes to thermal temperatures in streams and oceans.

Much of our seashore will be uninhabitable—for both humans and wildlife--because of rising ocean levels, constant battering due to more numerous and increasingly violent storms, and the escalating costs of providing protection from the elements.

Ironically, as we face dire forecasts on global warming, coral reefs and biodiversity, regulations are being loosened at the national level. The President just signed an order opening up major forest areas to new road-building and logging activities, at a time when we are struggling to recover and protect habitat for salmon from just those kinds of destructive activities.

So, rather that waiting for the federal government to finally accept what the world's scientists say is certain, we need to develop new tools in our approach to conservation. At a time when national regulations are not providing the standard we need for our environment, now is a perfect time to think about how we can encourage conservation through incentives at the local level.

That is why this conference is so important.

In King County we are successfully using the tools of economic incentive and innovative partnerships to preserve open space, protect farmland and encourage growth where we want it.

Through these collaborative approaches we have been able to permanently protect over 12,000 acres of productive farmlands, create over 100 miles of regional trails, and preserve 100,000 acres of forest.

Inside our tool box, we offer several incentive programs for the individual landowner all designed to encourage conservation and appropriate uses.

First, is the public benefit rating system, which offers tax advantages to property owners who agree to voluntarily conserve and protect land resources including open space. Landowners are rewarded for going above and beyond what the regulations require. Points are awarded for open space resources, like wetlands, historic landmarks or trail linkages. The points translate into a percentage reduction in property taxes.

Right now in King County some 500 landowners and more than five-thousand acres are involved.

The other two programs for the small property owner have to do with development rights.

Our "transfer of development rights" program is a market-driven initiative built for the private sector. A developer in the urban area can buy development rights from a property owner in the rural area of King County. The rural homeowner gets a financial reward for not developing that property, the urban developer can build densely and King County is able to promote growth in areas where we want it. Thus, incentives guide development where it is most appropriate.

With the ever-increasing pressure for more developable space, preserving farmland is a major challenge. In 1979 voters approved a $50 million ballot measure to protect farms. The Farmland Preservation Program was the first voter-approved measure in the nation to protect agriculture in a metropolitan area. Under it, King County has bought the rights to over 12,800 acres. The cost of land remains low because it does not have the potential for development, so it can more easily be purchased for agricultural use.

We also have initiatives to encourage the kind of conservation that brings the biggest positive impact on our environment. Our stewardship program allows property owners to reduce some of the natural vegetation on their property if they commit to preserving the most important part of their land, be it a wetland or critical habitat.

We also protect the rural areas of our county and its important agricultural heritage with tools like our Farm Plan that allows farmers to reduce sensitive area buffers in order to farm.

Conservation is not just about working with individuals, but about providing everyone with the tools to fulfill a comprehensive vision for our county. Many of these tools come through outreach and education. We are not only trying to save the farmland, but farming as an occupation, too. I recently hired a rural economic development specialist, and we are developing strategies that will help farms prosper. After asking farmers what they needed from us we are developing cooperative kitchens where farmers can turn their crops into products that add value. We are even working to develop an organic chicken processing facility that will help our farmers connect with a growing market for organically grown meat.

It's not enough to just encourage people to conserve land; we must also teach them how to manage it. We work with farmers to teach them the best manure management practices that protect our water quality. We teach landowners how to plant along streams to stop erosion and we teach people where to build in their land to have the least impact.

These individual actions are coupled with large land acquisitions. We recently unveiled a program we call "Greenprint," that strategically directs our land acquisition and conservation policies. Our vision is to protect the most important lands and establish a contiguous corridor of green from our lowlands to the crest of the Cascade Mountains. Large scale agreements to protect land and promote responsible growth are integral to the success of Greenprint.

In fact, we have been most successful in putting deals together to conserve large blocks of land through partnerships with non-profits, private corporations and local jurisdictions to preserve land in a way that meets everyone's needs.

Last year, we negotiated a deal to preserve the 94,000 acre Snoqualmie Forest – a piece of land twice the size of the City of Seattle. This was land once eyed as a new suburban community but was also long sought for preservation by our environmental community and by Cascade land Conservancy director Gene Duvenoy. Gene was one of the key thinkers and negotiators in the deal.

But outright purchase if this huge forest was too costly and the financing originally proposed literally would have taken an act of Congress to accomplish. I challenged my staff to think outside the box and figure out a way to save that forest forever.

We ended up spending $22 million to purchase the development rights to preserve nearly 100,000 acres of open space and this will continue to be a working forest forever. We got a bargain. We protected jobs and created an important buffer to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness area. Most importantly, we created a wall against sprawl. The suburb dreamed of in the 80's will never be built.

One hundred years from now, people may not know our names, but they will enjoy the quality of life given them by this forest.

How does something like this happen? I challenged my staff to think out of the box. If you look on your table, you'll see a handout called "Smart Conservation" – The Anatomy of the Deal." This is a case study of a collaborative agreement we are working on right now using most of the tools in the toolbox.

Under this agreement a local government, a non-profit and King County will protect more than 4,500 acres of open space and working forest, enhance recreational opportunities and foster the wise development of homes and businesses in a growing community.

The deal places a conservation easement on 1,600 acres of forested land owned by the developer. That easement triggers more than $2 million in matching federal "Forest Legacy" funds that will go to purchase conservation easements on an additional 2,000 acres of forested land. Development that would have taken place in the conserved area will now occur inside the town, where utilities and infrastructure exist or can be efficiently provided.

This arrangement also preserves open space within the city. An important side benefit of all this is from a local church that has land involved in the deal whose congregation became so impressed with the importance of environmental protection, they have adopted environmental protection as a mission and are working to protect the environment in King County and in Africa where they work with villagers.

In short, it's a great deal for the rural city, it's a great deal for us; it's a great deal for the developer, and it's a great deal for the environment, here and on the other side of the world, and for the people who treasure it.

As I said, my other policy priority is public health. How do land use and public health relate?

Our suburban landscape has made us fat. We are becoming an obese nation where our children sit in front of a TV set or computer screen for hours on end, and we, their parents, drive to work, to shop and for entertainment.

In King County, obesity more than doubled to 16 percent in 2001 from 8 percent in 1987. Obesity was responsible for roughly 15 percent of the 11,300 deaths in King County in 1998 for adults over 18. This is a public health threat we are bearing the cost of in our health care system.

Regulations help us protect and preserve open space, and after amendments to our Comprehensive Plan last year we are providing incentives and tools that encourage developments that create communities where it is easy for people to get out of their cars and exercise. Land use policies are tools for encouraging healthy lifestyles and reducing obesity and related health care costs by placing housing, jobs, and shops all nearby.

Developers are finding buyers want communities with trails for walking and biking and open space near by. They are amenities that people are willing to pay for and the whole region benefits from the green space and the ultimate savings in health care costs.

The physicist and visionary Freeman Dyson once said that "there is a great satisfaction in building good tools for other people to use." I couldn't agree more.

While our geography and demographics may be unique, the tools and approaches for protecting the environment and natural resources of King County can be duplicated throughout the country. The individual incentive programs, partnerships and other tools we employ apply to everyone, everywhere.

The most important thing that local leaders need to remember is: it's not just one hammer and one nail. It's a variety of tools that can be used in a number of situations.

Over the years, King County has built partnerships with developers large and small; with local governments, state managers, farmers, timber companies, conservation groups and more than a few concerned bird watchers.

The common denominator they all share is a healthy landscape that will sustain a quality of life that is deeply cherished.

A future that includes global warming, population growth, water scarcity, development encroachment and – sadly - a federal agenda that is seriously out of synch with local needs, will combine to sorely test us all.

But therein lays our brightest promise; because we all know that the real answers to the world's challenges begin right where they started – right in our own back yards.

Fulfilling this promise requires the ability of all of us to recognize each other's self interest and which part of that self-interest is in synch with our own.

After negotiating these kinds of agreements for the past decade, my experience tells me that with the right tools in everyone's hands the answers will surprise you. We get an infinite number of benefits. Not just clean air and clean water for people and wildlife, but improved health and sense of community both here and around the world. I know you agree that what we do locally can make a difference and the right tools and thinking out of the box can get more than we ever dreamed.

Thank you for asking me to speak with you today.