For the first time since a series of challenges were filed beginning in late 1990s, San Juan County has been declared in compliance with the Washington State Growth Management Act.

The GMA requires governmental units meet certain planning, service and land use criteria, including providing adequate infrastructure to allow for expected population increases in Urban Growth Areas.

In making the declaration, the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board said, “The county has successfully completed a long and arduous undertaking … The county is to be sincerely congratulated.”

San Juan County’s achievement means it is now eligible to apply for grants for sanitary sewer and storm water projects from the Centennial Clean Water Fund, grants and low interest loans from the Public Works Trust Fund and it will no longer be penalized one point when the Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) ranks applications made for grants. In recent years that one point penalty has caused San Juan County to receive smaller grants or in some cases finished out of the money.

The declaration also means that the county is no longer in immediate danger of being declared in “Invalidity,” which could have resulted in penalties, including a state-enforced freeze on building permits or impounding of state shared revenue.

“This is a major victory for the county,” County Administrator Pete Rose said, “and it could not have come at a better time.”

When Rose became Administrator in 2006, the County Western Washington GMA Review Board considered San Juan County out of compliance on numerous issues, ranging from the need to document that its land use plan for its two GMAs was sufficient to meet future development needs, the need to have a funded plan for dealing with storm water runoff in Eastsound and for documented water and sanitary sewer service plans for Lopez Village.

“The financial opportunities this opens for the county are certainly welcome and needed, “ Rose said, “But it is important for us to remember that the real benefit of GMA compliance is the long-range planning process the GMA has helped us develop. And it is that planning process that will help ensure the quality of life in our county will be sustainable.”