I can’t let this nifty news go unmentioned—King County, home to Seattle, Bellevue, and the bulk of Puget Sound’s population, is taking the lead in trying to reduce the climate impacts of new development:
King County Executive Ron Sims plans to introduce legislation that would allow the county to reject or modify development projects because of their effect on global warming.
If the proposal is passed by the Metropolitan King County Council, county land-use officials believe King County would be the first jurisdiction in the nation to take that step.
Cool: first in the nation. It’s good to see this corner of the continent forging ahead.
Anonymous
It’s a good thing that Ron Sims is moving forward on this at the King County level because the bill (Senate Bill 6580) that would have taken this approach to the entire state went down in flames today at the committee level. The House Local Gov’t Committee vote was 5-2, with 2 Democrats (Dean Takko and Deb Eddy) voting against the bill in light of opposition from the Building Industry Association of WA and Association of WA Business
albergstein
We’ll see if he means it, by whether he invokes it to kill Light Rail, which he supported for years and now says he doesn’t. An interesting article to illustrate this is at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003921121_danny03.htmlI don’t think anyone has ever calculated the carbon cost of creating this boondoogle. We probably could have bought electric cars for everyone who would ride it. Ron is one of those politicians who always jump in front of any parade he sees coming. I voted for him, because was no reasonable alternative. He has always been well endowed by the very people who he supposedly is regulating. Do some checking on who his donor list includes, such as the building trades industry. He has created King County as one of the most gridlocked places in the country. Try getting off the Plateau on his two lane roads he allowed up there in return for insane sprawl on the east side, which his organization allowed. We’ll see if anything comes of this latest bunch of hot air.