Author: Brian T. Hodges Washington’s Growth Management Act is a mess. The Act directs local government to continually adopt new land use regulations designed to accomplish a whole host of inconsistent goals. Most notably, the GMA requires that local governments periodically update their critical area regulations – regardless of whether an u ...
Author: Brian T. Hodges Earlier this year, PLF stepped in to help Kipp and Marilyn Dunlap protect themselves against an uncompensated taking of their vacant residential lot in Nooksack, Washington (located just south of the Canadian border). As you may recall, the Dunlaps purchased a quarter-acre lot with the dream of building their home the ...
Author: Brian T. Hodges To borrow from Shakespeare, something is rotten in the County of Kitsap. The County’s elected prosecutor is living the American dream. He has a fully developed waterfront property with a large home set back approximately 50 feet from his bulkheaded shoreline. In other words, the prosecutor’s ...
Author: Brian T. Hodges If truth is held to be a virtue, then why did Washington’s environmental agencies work so hard to stifle a bill that would require them to demonstrate that science used to develop environmental regulations passes the peer-review “sniff test?” The answer (drum-role please): money. Washington’s D ...
Author: Brian T. Hodges For years, Washington’s Department of Ecology has been trying to determine the source of pollutants entering Puget Sound. The presumption, of course, has been that those dastardly humans who have the gall to live in a home and drive to work – god forbid that they take a trip to one … ...
Author: Brian T. Hodges Earlier today, the Kitsap Sun published an op-ed that I co-authored with Jackie Rossworn, executive director of Kitsap Alliance of Property Owners. The op-ed highlights several property rights victories and important issues that remain unresolved after Washington’s Supreme Court declined to review the Kitsap Cou ...
Earlier this year, PLF filed a petition for a writ certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case, Kitsap Alliance for Property Owners v. Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board. The petition asks the Court to review a Washington appellate decision holding that a county can force landowners to dedicate large tracts of private & ...
One way that PLF can assure that its property rights victories have a long-lasting impact is to “connect the dots” between past cases and current controversies. A good example is the Washington Court of Appeals’ 1999 decision in Honesty In Environmental Analysis and Legislation v. Seattle, which stands out as the first Washingto ...
On June 2, 2015, Division I of the Washington State Court of Appeals is set to hear oral argument in the first state case seeking to limit government’s ability to coerce property from land use applicants since PLF’s landmark victory in Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Mgmt. Dist. (2013). The case, Common Sense Alliance … ...