beyond the legal opinion
January 18, 2013
In 2012, the Washington legislature directed the Department of Ecology to revisit and amend SEPA rules to streamline the permit process. The Department of Ecology will be doing this in a two-step process. The first process was concluded on December…
January 17, 2013
In 2012, local governments successfully got a reprieve of several years for Phase II municipalities from low impact development requirements (“LID”). But Clark County and other Phase I jurisdictions currently will be required to implement LID in their stormwater programs…
January 16, 2013
With 2012 in the history books, we pulled out the crystal ball to look at what issues will arise in the legislature in 2013. With a new governor and a very unusual make up in the Washington legislature, 2013 looks…
January 14, 2013
In a recent ruling the Eastern District of the Federal Court in Virginia ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) cannot regulate stormwater as a pollutant under the Clean Water Act (“CWA”). Fairfax County and the State of Virginia sued the EPA…
January 14, 2013
The U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in which it ruled that water flowing from an improved portion of a navigable waterway to an unimproved portion of the same waterway does not qualify as a discharge of pollutant under the Clean Water…
January 5, 2013
The Washington legislature is currently looking at three separate bills that would address various aspects of Washington’s stormwater requirements. Representative Liz Pike is the primary sponsor of three bills in the Washington State House of Representatives while Senator Rivers is the primary sponsor…
November 16, 2012
The Bonneville Power Administration (“BPA”) announced their preferred alignment for the I-5 Reinforcement project today. The site contains a map along with other critical documents regarding the selection of this route. The BPA evaluated several alternatives and selected the central alternative that…
October 12, 2012
CNN money posted an interesting article this morning, which suggests that housing will reach peak levels by 2015. Furthermore, the article suggests what many of us in the industry have been forecasting for a long time: There will soon be an underserved housing…
September 26, 2012
Developers who spent months and possibly years on a project and have invested a tremendous amount of capital on architectural plans, engineering, environmental studies, required services studies, and economic viability studies required in the the land use process, may find themselves barred from proceeding further on their project, even though they believed they had final approval from a municipal government. This bar results from a local government’s ability to amend its development regulation
September 26, 2012
Government remains addicted to impact fees.Â
