Have you ever walked outside right after the
rainfall stops? Yeah, but I can't taste it. I
can smell it. You can taste it. Come on. You
can taste it. You can't taste it. Taste the rainbow.
Welcome to County Connection. the official podcast
of the Washington State Association of Counties,
where we dive into the legislative issues shaping
the future of our communities. From budgets to
public safety, infrastructure to elections, we'll
break down what's happening in Olympia and how
it impacts counties from across the Evergreen
State. Stay informed, stay engaged, and join
us as we amplify the voice of Washington's 39
counties. All right, welcome back, everybody,
to the County Connection Podcast. This is Paul
Jewell, your host. and Government Relations Director
with the Washington State Association of Counties.
I am back in the studio chatting about policy,
this time with Curtis Steinauer. Curtis is one
of our policy coordinators here at WASAC. It
feels like it's been a while since you and I
had a conversation, Curtis. I was just here with
Jamie, and I told her it felt like I'd just been
in here with her, but with you, it feels like
we haven't done this in a while. Yeah, clearly
you're avoiding me. Well, I don't know if I'm
avoiding you. Well, I mean, right. That was going
to be my next question. Could you blame me? Yeah.
No, I'm not avoiding you. I think you've just
been busy. Things have been crazy around here.
Yeah. Well, especially this week. It's weird.
There's been several weeks this session where
it seems like everyone else is running around.
I have no testimony, but it's like they plan
all the building and permitting bills at one
time. There was a before. House of Origin cut
off. There was a week where I had 14 hearings
in one week. Yeah, that's a lot. And I think
this week I have seven. Had seven. That's still
a pretty good load. Yeah. So you mentioned House
of Origin cutoff. That's kind of what we're talking
about, right? That was last Wednesday, which
is a huge deal for everybody. It was funny today.
We had our LSC meeting, as you know. And even
at the last LSC meeting, which was a couple of
weeks ago, our bill tracker packet was like 50
pages long. This week, it's eight. Eight little
tiny pages, which is amazing. It just really
changes the whole face of the session. It really...
puts in perspective and narrowly focuses our
work, right, and makes it a lot easier to kind
of track what's really, really important legislatively,
policy -wise, what actually has an opportunity
to move. I'm sure some of the bills that you
were tracking have died, and there's a few others
that you're probably now intensely focused on.
Which ones are still around that we need to work
on? Yeah, so if we want to talk about bills we're
still working on, I think you put them in three
categories, right? Bills that we want to see
continue to move, bills that we want to change
or amend, and then bills that we just want to
stop. I think, thankfully, I've only got one
bill left in that final category. The ones that
we just want to stop. Correct. Okay. Which one's
that? Let's start with that one. That one sounds
juicy. Yeah. So that is Senate Bill 5729, which
I have been referring to as the bill that refuses
to die. So this is a bill. It's had many forms.
It's hard to... very succinctly say what this
bill does because it does several things and
none of them are what the bill did when it was
originally introduced. Oh, that's interesting.
Right. So you need a little background to understand
this bill and what it's trying to get at. The
bill's intent, really, is to provide clarity
and speed up the process for project and or building
permits at the local level. Part of the legislature's
big push to just enable more affordable housing,
which I think is an intent that we're aligned
with, right? More affordable housing development's
good. Yeah, I think everybody thinks that's good.
Priority of counties, right? And so this bill,
though, it comes in in a biennium. Immediately
after the legislature passed Senate Bill 5290
in, I believe, 2023. Yeah, that was the permitting
reform bill. Yes. And so that created a distinction
that's important to understand. It created this.
category of permits that formerly went by several
different names that they now refer to and define
in statute as project permits. So these are permits
that have to do with land use review and environmental
review of not the construction of a structure,
but the work that goes before that in a development.
So you're talking about like a new long plat.
You're talking about like a... Binding site.
Yeah. There you go. A subdivision. And some other
things, too. A conditional use permit, I think,
falls. A planned unit development would fall
in the same category. And sometimes, in certain
situations, creating a necessary dwelling unit
would fall under this category. Oh, okay. Do
you have a different understanding? Paul, I absolutely
bow to your... knowledge in this policy? No,
I mean, unless you're subdividing a parcel or
something like that. I mean, most of the time
an ADU could be built on an existing parcel that
allows residential use, as long as you can meet
certain setback requirements and public health
standards and things like that. So an ADU is
typically more just a building permit than an
actual development permit. But, you know, there
may be a case where it could be a special use
or conditional use where you might need to get
a land use authority first. that's i think that's
the issue there and i think that uh so this was
the original reason this bill and several other
bills that were brought in the senate housing
committee were brought because there's this perspective
that middle housing types and especially detached
accessory dwelling units are difficult to build
because of permitting barriers. And so I don't
know if this is happening in counties or it's
a city issue, but there's been testimony on this
bill a couple times during the process that there's
situations where to make a new detached accessory
dwelling unit, of course, eventually you have
to get a building permit to actually build the
structure. But first you have to get a permit
where they come and review for the impact of
an additional detached accessory dwelling unit
on the... you know, environment around it or
the other? Maybe. I mean, it depends on the jurisdiction,
right? Right. In an area where it's just an outright
permitted use, it's just filing a building permit,
getting a site, you know, doing site review as
part of that process and off you go. Right. But
if it's not an outright permitted use, right,
where, again, it could be what's called a special
use or conditional use or something like that,
then you would have to do kind of that environmental
analysis and that site review and other things
to go along with it. Is there... there's some
sort of sentiment in the legislature that those
types of various permitting processes? Yes. Okay.
Yep. And, you know, so going back to 5290, that
created the distinction that we talked about
between project and building permits. Yeah. And
a lot of that had to do with, you know, timelines.
Exactly. Timelines on project permits specifically,
not building permits. That's right. You know,
the project permit review now is governed by
RCW 3670B, which is the statute that was created
under 5290. And building permits are really governed
by the codes we adopt. as part of adoption of
the state building code. Well, now let's go back
just a little bit because 3670B was not created
under 5290. 3670B preexisted. It was modified
under 5290. Okay. I'm sure that was just a slip
of the tongue, but I heard it, so I wanted to
make sure our listeners, I didn't want them to
go, huh, 3670B was just created last year? No.
Appreciate the clarification. All of these things.
preempt me in this policy area. So as always,
bow to your knowledge here, Paul. Well, if there's
going to be real bowing involved, I think we're
going to... Whoa. Well, you're the one who brought
it up. I think that maybe we should establish
a proper standard and a proper protocol. I'd
like to note for the record for the listeners
that we are alone in this room and I am now officially
uncomfortable. Back to the issue. Please, Curtis,
continue. No bowing meetings. So this project
permit, building permit. That last part sounded
like a call for help, by the way. And for folks,
this is not a live show, so don't call anybody.
Except maybe me to make sure I'm okay. What you're
hearing is tape delayed. If you're concerned
about Curtis, you can text him or email him.
In any case, 5729, when it was originally introduced,
attempted to put some standards on building codes,
but they put it in the project permit code section,
3670B. Oh. So that was an obvious error. So they
were trying to deal with building permits? Building
permits, yes. Okay. So you still haven't gotten
to what the bill does. Right, yes. I'm taking
a long time here. It made it so that if an engineer
or an architect stamps the plans, the original
bill, when you submit for a building code, it
made it so that you could not review that building
code if it was stamped by a professional engineer
or architect. And it required the engineer or
architect to assume liability for compliance
with the local code. What do you mean you couldn't
review it? You couldn't review it. Like the county
wouldn't have the opportunity to actually review
it for compliance, things like that? Yep. Interesting.
This is what I think you're about to probably
say, which is kind of a builder's solution or
a builder's remedy. This is something that's
been discussed for 20 years or more. Right, and
it was included in no less than a dozen bills
this session. And it's been in bills previously,
and we've been able to keep it out of all previous
pieces of legislation because it's a bad idea,
right? I'm sure, you know, why don't you tell
our listeners? I could tell our listeners why
it's a bad idea. Why don't you tell them why
it's a bad idea? So it's bad from the perspective
of environmental impact. It's bad for the perspective
of maintaining community character. But it's
probably also not good for builders either. You
know, what we've heard from our planners group
is that there's going to be certain situations
where because... You know, development regulations
are different from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
An engineer from another jurisdiction might submit
plans that would have complied with setback requirements
over in the adjacent county. But in this county,
this building is now, you know, six feet into
the setback. Right. And now we can't review the
project or say that it's, you know, say you have
to change this before you start construction.
But they're still going to have a point where
the building code inspector comes in and inspects
the... you know, construction. And they're going
to say, you're six feet into the setback. You
got to move this entire building six feet that
way. Yeah. And that's a terrible outcome, right?
That's a terrible outcome for the homeowner and
for the builder themselves. So this idea that
just because someone is an architect or just
because they're an engineer and they know broadly
what the building codes are and the state building
codes are, et cetera, that they're going to do
everything perfectly right. for the particular
site for the particular jurisdiction is a misnomer
that's the reason why we have plan review that's
the reason why we issue building permits because
even professionals make mistakes right there
are big differences in wind shear requirements
from one area to another there are big differences
in snow load requirements from one area to another
there could be all kinds of geotechnical issues
with a site or a region that an outside architect
or developer has no knowledge or understanding
of and these things are really important for
local community permitting authorities like counties
to have that understanding of and make sure that
the public is being protected, not just from
a financial aspect, but from a life safety, right,
aspect as well. I mean, can you imagine having,
oh, it's a stamped, you know, it's a stamped
application. It goes through, it's automatically
issued a permit. And then that poor building
inspector goes out there and says, you need to
redo this entire foundation. Right. Or, you know,
they don't wait for that, you know, foundation
inspector and suddenly they're throwing walls
up and then the foundation inspector goes, you
need to redo this entire foundation. That is
a catastrophic outcome. Right. In all those situations,
the engineer architect would be liable. Sure.
The financial damage is there. Yeah. And I can't
imagine they want that liability. They were not
impressed with the bill. I'll put it that way.
And, you know, Bill did a few other things. I
think the other provisions. originally were less
concerning to us and we showed up weighed in
with concerns on that first piece and we were
assured the bill was not moving forward. The
sponsor clearly said his intent wasn't captured
in how the bill was drafted. Like I said, the
engineers were opposed. Us, the cities, and FutureWise
all sat together in unified opposition. That's
rare. Which should tell you something about how
bad the bill is. Yeah, that's rare. And, you
know, we thought, okay, we weighed in. We've
done our job. We agreed to kind of stakeholder
some ideas about how to address permit timelines
in the interim. And we thought that was it. And
then the bill was exact the day of. policy committee
cutoff and it was exact straight. So it moved.
Yeah. And it didn't go to fiscal. Was it heavily
amended to make significant changes? Not at that
point. Okay. And so it went to the fore and we
kind of went, what's going on? We met with the
chair of the committee who would have been responsible
for deciding whether that bill gets called up
or not. And we talked to them and they said,
you know, I know it moved out of committee, but
I Wouldn't worry a lot about it. If you have
concerns, express them to the sponsor. We, you
know, let's talk in the interim. Don't expect
the bill to move. And then there was an amendment.
There's amendment hung on the bar and the bill
was brought to the floor. And the bill, the new
bill changed building code to project permit
and changed the prohibition on reviewing it all.
a stamped application to basically a prohibition
of reviewing for completeness. So under 5290,
there are several phases that were time limited
each phase of review. The first phase of review
is the completeness review, where we make sure
everything in the application is there that we
need to understand if the proposed development
complies with our development regulations. And
that is a 28 -day review period. And what the
bill... does in its current form and did after
this amendment was not allow us that initial
28 -day completeness review if an engineer or
architect stamped it. Much less concerning, but
still just not a great idea. Yeah, that's a weird
proposal. And it still placed liability on the
engineer or architect. And even though it seemed
like it solved the problem of they might have
financial liability for moving a whole building,
they still testified that... Obtaining errors
and admissions insurance. is incredibly difficult.
And typically when they're doing that, it's on
a public project where the local government certifying
that their errors and emissions insurance meets
a standard. And under the bill, there was no
sort of, they just needed an errors and emission
insurance policy for an arbitrary amount. Oh,
so not even a max, not even a minimum pay or
a minimum liability amount. A million dollars
minimum liability. Okay. So, which is kind of
hilarious when you think about the potential
impacts of, uh, Not being able to review a permit.
But here being just a finding of completeness,
that's just that the application is complete.
That means that it's ready to be processed. Right.
Why wouldn't someone want a review for completeness?
You'd think you'd want that because if you –
just because it's got a stamp on it, what if
it's not complete? So my read was this was a
– in -session pivot to try to get a bill that
actually accomplished something. And I think
they failed. I think the material effect of -
Yeah, that doesn't really accomplish anything.
Right. The material effect would just be that
when we got to the first, in our actual review
of compliance, depending on whether there needs
to be public hearings or not, and some other
criteria, it can be between 45 days and 120 days.
And basically, we would start our 45 -day review
period. And if we found something wasn't there
that we needed, we have the statutory authority.
to pause that, tell them they need to give us
a study. And the amended bill was very clear
that we would still retain that authority. And
so it would just make it so that it essentially
still allowed us to review an application for
completeness just with no clock. Which, right,
which strangely enough could actually further
delay the project and make it cost more. So again,
that's not in the consumer's interest. And it's
certainly not going to speed up housing. And
it's certainly not going to make it cheaper.
And the other, so I mentioned the 45 to 100.
review period. The other provision in the bill
would have said that a local government, we only
get three chances to ask for information from
a permit applicant. And once those three asks
are up, it's an automatic approval. And then
a final provision in the amended bill would say
that we cannot review through the project permit
review. We can still review a building permit,
but not a project permit. is involved with an
existing structure. And it's very confusing language
because it was a statute written for building
permits, and then they just changed the word
building permit to project. So it's really unclear
to us what the actual material effect of that
would be. But I think it's either nothing because
we don't generally require project permits that
do remodels of existing buildings. Right. That's
not really in the purview. That would be unusual.
Right. Except for there are some There are certain
review processes where you could see might fit
in there. The ADU example we mentioned earlier,
it's not an attached ADU, but it's an accessory
dwelling unit and you have to apply for a conditional
use permit to do that in this jurisdiction. Maybe
that. Or a change, you know, a change of use
application for an existing structure could be
something that could be implicated in that, right?
Where it's say it's a commercial building for
industrial purposes and you want to actually
change that to residential, but you're not going
to tear it down. You're just going to redo the
structure itself. Depending on how that bill
is written, that could get caught up in there.
Or anytime a big remodel triggered somehow some
environmental review, right? Right, right. And
so all these are, I think, not in line with the
goals and values of the legislature. Like, I
don't think this legislature... has the value
of limiting environmental review. That's not
been our experience, right? No, yeah. And so,
you know, we worked to point these things out,
didn't think the bill would move, and then the
bill passed off the Senate almost unanimously.
Two courageous senators voted no. And that moved
to the House and was referred to local government.
And, I mean, even before the bill was... being
voted, we knew that it would be referred to local
government in the House. And so we went to the
local government chair and we said, this bill,
you know, all the things I've said now, and we
were assured, several different stakeholders
who were concerned about this were assured, the
bill's not going to move. And then first week,
this week of opposite House hearings, the bill's
scheduled for public hearing and executive session.
No kidding. And we're, what in the world? Yeah,
what is going on? So there was a... I think the
chair of local government, to their credit, always
believed that the bill as written was unworkable
and couldn't move. But there was some thought
because there was such bipartisan support as
it moved off the Senate floor, which I really
think was a product of the endorsement of the
chair of the committee it came out of in the
Senate. That bipartisan support made the local
government chair in the House. really want to
find a way to move at least part of the bill
forward. And then the public testimony happened,
and to the chair's credit, there was even a moment
in the hearing, because the pushback on this
bill was so robust, where the ranking member
leaned over and whispered audibly so the whole
hearing room could hear, I guess this bill's
dead. So, you know, right now... What we've heard
is the bill's not moving. The executive session
was canceled. There was one stakeholder meeting
to see if there could be an amendment and part
of the bill could make it through. Nothing came
out of that meeting. Even the Building Industries
Association indicated that they would like to
see the bill stakeholder in the interim to their
credit. And I haven't heard anything else since.
I will say I'm not sleeping well at night. thinking
this bill is dead because of how many times in
this session we've been assured it's not moving
only to come in one morning and see the bill
move. Well, let's hope that it doesn't. I mean,
this is a really good example of why people like
you and I have jobs, right? Because left to their
own devices, the legislature, you know, they're
wading into what they think is a problem. Right.
And that's the permitting process, which, by
the way, they've created over the years. I mean,
this this process that we have is a product of
the legislature and it's never gotten easier
year over year over year. It's gotten more complex
and more difficult. And now they have the situation
that they have around a housing crisis and they're
looking for any way possible, you know, to point
a finger, lay some blame and make a fix. And
so they come up with these ideas about, well,
It's got to be this or it's got to be that. And
they wade into a situation. They wade into a
process that they really know very little about,
right? And they put out ideas in the form of
legislation that just are unworkable. And they
don't understand that. And so it's really important
for people like you and people like me to go
to these hearings, to review these bills, and
to work collaboratively with other stakeholders
to say, hey, this is how it really works. And
this is what you're proposing. And this is how
your proposal either does or doesn't work. And
I'm glad that. they're listening to you finally.
It sounds like in the House, or I'm sorry, I
guess this originated in the Senate, they were
just hoping to keep something going so that they
maybe could continue working on it. That oftentimes
is what happens with a bill, even one that in
its current version, everyone knows doesn't work.
So while it sounds a little strange, it's not
completely unheard of. But at this point, it
doesn't sound like there's really any viable
path forward. Yes, I agree. And I agree with
everything you said. I want to add what I've
discovered in this conversation learned is that,
you know, the legislators, I don't think their
intent is bad here. Like you said, they're trying
to address what is clearly a problem with using
their regulatory authority over a process that
they do not interact with on a daily basis. And
even when, you know, some of them were previously
local electeds. Even then, there's huge knowledge
gaps because they weren't the planning director
of their jurisdiction. And even the city council
people, the county context is completely different,
so they don't necessarily understand that and
vice versa. And it creates all these problems.
And what's interesting to me is that often we
find ourselves in a position where our feedback
creates this oppositional stance between us and
the legislature. And it's kind of ironic because
literally every jurisdiction I talked to about
this gave me the feedback like, hey, we are working
our tails off to improve our local permitting
process and to make sure that these projects
can be approved faster and easier and that there's
clear direction for developers. And several jurisdictions
even are like, look, we did this formal study
on how to improve this process. it's ironic to
me that sometimes we are singled out as like
the problem when their local electeds at the
in the counties and cities are working towards
the exact same goal as the legislators. Yeah,
we all have the same goal, that's for sure. But
we all just, we don't necessarily all understand
it the same way. And we all don't necessarily
think, we all don't necessarily understand what
the real problems are. So that's what makes the
political process so fascinating and why we continue
to have these conversations on a regular basis.
You know, we didn't get in this housing mess
overnight and we're not going to get out of it
overnight either. It'll be interesting to see,
you know, kind of over time, which of these myriad
of strategies that have been deployed actually
have a positive effect in kind of moving the
needle on making housing more affordable and
more accessible for the residents of Washington.
That's pretty much all the time we have. I know
you have some other bills that you wanted to
chat about, but we're going to have to hold those
till next time. Just call me one Bill Curtis
here in this podcast. Well, more importantly,
Curtis, well, not more importantly, but maybe
also as equally importantly, today is the first
day of March badness. You got your bracket ready
to go. Who did you pick to win it all? How should
I put this? Reluctantly pick Duke. Reluctantly?
Yes. Well, no one forced you to pick them. No.
No one likes Duke. But I think they're the clear
favorite if you've been watching college basketball.
The people at Duke University, I think they would
disagree. No, I think I'd just put them in the
no one category. I'm sorry to any Duke listeners.
I'm just being facetious. I think Duke is clearly
the best team in the country. Hard to make it
all the way through a March Madness. Kind of
like a bill trying to make it all the way through
the legislature. I think the bill has better
chances. All right, Curtis. Well, thanks for
coming by. We'll catch you in a little while
on some of these other ones. We've got a lot
of other kind of benchmarks coming up to inform
our listeners about. We're expecting. budgets
next week. After that, we've got another cutoff.
After that, we've got another cutoff. After that,
we've got another cutoff. So things are moving
pretty quickly. You could even say they're really
accelerating here in Olympia. I hope you get
a little bit of rest and can keep up. That is
the definition of accelerating. Thank you, Paul.
Yeah, well, I'm here to help. All right. Thanks,
Curtis. Thanks for tuning in to County Connection.
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