Category Archives: King County WA

Posts about events in King County Washington

Property Rights Are Not Secure in Washington State

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Property Rights Are Not Secure in Washington

By Preston Drew, President, Citizens’ Alliance for Property Rights

 

In 2008 the Washington State Court of Appeals threw out the most controversial section of the 2004 King County Critical Areas Ordinance, which was a provision that called for the set aside of as much as 65% of a rural landowner’s property when applying for a land use permit. The Supreme Court then refused to hear King County’s appeal, thus rendering the Appeals Court decision settled law. Yet the King County administration refuses to change the code to reflect the Appeals Court decision. When queried recently the reply was “Oh, we just don’t enforce that clause”.

Why? Aren’t county officials obligated to have the code reflect the law?

 

Non-industrial small forest landowners across the state were promised financial compensation when they were required to set aside stream buffers of as much as 200 feet on both sides of fish bearing streams with the passage of the 1999 Fish and Forest law. Lawmakers found that these folks were disproportionally affected by the loss of timber revenues that could not be realized due to the new restrictions. To date there is about ten million dollars owed to mostly family owners, and many more potential claims have not been submitted, because the state has not been paying. Is this fair? How can the state make promises and then not deliver?

 

The Department of Ecology is presently engaged in two initiatives that threaten harm to values and the quiet enjoyment of owners’ properties. Shoreline Master Plans seek unscientific one-size-fits-all 150 foot buffers, within which many uses would be non- conforming. Non- conforming status immediately lowers values, makes insurance difficult, severely limits improvement options, and lowers property values and thus also lowers county tax income. It also subjects owners to timelines with regard to grandfathering that many owners may not be aware of.

 

Private water wells are also under attack in several counties. Jefferson, Kittitas, Skagit and Lewis county owners are facing in-stream flow and aquifer related difficulties while trying to get their wells approved, and some are even facing the threat of not being able to continue using established wells. Where is the science to justify these types of actions? Western Washington has abundant precipitation and rural areas have low density development. Why is the state pursuing this course of action?

 

Even though Washington has one the best defined eminent domain clauses in its constitution, with specific language prohibiting the taking of private property for private use, stunning abuse has occurred. That abuse comes in a variety of flavors. Questionable blight declarations, public agency seizure of excessively large amounts of property and whether the action was even for a public purpose. ‘Public’ purpose can be as loose as whether or not more tax revenue will be collected as a result of new development, an outrageous result of the infamous Kelo decision at the US Supreme Court. The case involved Suzette Kelo and her neighbors in New London, CT who lost their homes to a private commercial development that was never built. State legislatures across the country reacted with new laws to protect individuals with varying results. The best we have managed to do so far in Washington State is to make sure the victims were better notified. But more must be done to safeguard property rights.

 

Property rights are civil rights. They attach to the person, not the property. Citizens Alliance for Property Rights (www.capr.us) is a volunteer nonprofit dedicated to preserving and restoring some of these precious rights. CAPR is calling on all elected and unelected public officials to recognize the fragile nature and importance of these rights to individual citizens. Homes and businesses owned by our hard-working citizens usually represent the lion’s share of investment and wealth that they have earned and created over their lifetimes. To protect individual rights, our economy, and entrepreneurial initiative, we all must do more to protect property rights.

 

We further call on lawmakers to demand that laws such as the King County clearing and grading ordinance, declared illegal by the Washington State Court of Appeals, are immediately changed to reflect the ruling; that laws such as the Fish and forest Law, which promise to pay for confiscated property, be fully funded or the property returned to the landowners; that over-reaching agencies, such as the Department of Ecology, cannot be allowed to shut down whole communities and economies with questionable science that smacks of a hidden agenda.

 

The eminent domain power has been described in history as ‘the despotic power’. Its use must be limited and compelling because the impacts on people are extreme.

 

Preston Drew is President of Citizens Alliance for Property Rights. The organization has chapters throughout Washington and California, and can be found on the web at www.capr.us.

Amnesty

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King County’s Department of Development and Environmental Services (DDES) has had a long-standing marketing program known unofficially as “1-800 Turn in Your Neighbor.” It has been a very effective way to bring in the funds necessary to make payroll each month, since DDES must finance its operations through fees and fines rather than tax dollars. They also periodically run a marketing program designed to get folks to turn in themselves. It is called “Amnesty.”

A quick look at the law.com dictionary shows the following definition:

Amnesty – n. a blanket abolition of an offense by the government, with the legal result that those charged or convicted have the charge or conviction wiped out.

The DDES amnesty falls rather short of the definition. If you turn yourself in, the fees you pay will be half what you will pay if your neighbor turns you in. It’s a bureaucracy’s idea of a half-price sale. I think it would be entirely appropriate for DDES to have a real amnesty for property owners. Currently, property owners are held liable for any improvements done to their property without the appropriate fees paid to DDES even if those improvements were by previous owners. Over the years, DDES and its predecessor BALD, have done a pathetic job of catching those doing unpermitted work. Concurrently, those department’s ineptitude has caused long lead times and high costs to get official permission which has led many to not bother asking for that permission. Meanwhile, DDES has no fiduciary responsibility to property owners whose work they do inspect when they fail to identify life-threatening conditions. They collect fees as though they are professionals but are not held to any professional standard whatever.

I can personally attest to the futility of asking DDES a pre-purchase question such as, “Has the accessory dwelling on the property I am about to purchase been permitted?” The answer was “Yes” before the purchase but “No” four years later. It is outrageous that buyers, who have no way to determine undisclosed problems with DDES, should be held responsible for the sins of previous owners. DDES should be held accountable for not doing their job when the infraction occurred. Some future owner who has done nothing wrong should not pay for their incompetence. Those future owners should be held harmless by King County.

It is time to wipe the slate and start over. Put a real amnesty in place now and forgive all past transgressions. Activity on any property that is causing provable harm to some neighbor can be stopped via the common law courts. Put a system in place at DDES so that future buyers have a guarantee backed by the County that they are not liable if the current owner has not followed the rules after the amnesty date. Allow buyers to sue King County when they discover that work inspected by DDES is not to code and is unsafe. Ratchet down the regulations to a point where permits can be obtained quickly and for low cost. Move most DDES employees to inspections instead of lengthy plan review. Plan review should be the job of engineers and architects who have a fiduciary responsibility to, and can be sued by, property owners for failures of their professional obligations.