Locke Upholds Promise To Veto Bill Relaxing Land-Use Planning Law

Gov. Gary Locke on Friday vetoed the first of several bills to relax the state’s land-use planning law, signaling Republican lawmakers that he meant it when he said there would be no significant changes to the law this year.

The Democrat’s top legislative lobbyist, Marty Brown, said his boss would look just as unkindly on more than a half-dozen other proposals to rewrite the Growth Management Act that were sent him by the Republican-led Legislature.

Locke said last month he would accept no changes to the 7-year-old law that went beyond recommendations for modest revisions made by a special panel, the Land Use Study Commission.

“That’s still the case today,” Brown said.

The bill Locke vetoed was among the milder measures passed by the Legislature to revise the law that requires local governments to control urban sprawl and to protect forests, farms and sensitive areas with planning ordinances. The law is bitterly opposed by developers and many local governments, especially in rural Washington. They say it is too rigid and stifles reasonable growth.