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AN ORDINANCE related to natural resources; establishing policies and procedures for the administration of the transfer of development credit bank; defining amenities; amending Ordinance 12076, Section 9, as amended, and K.C.C. 4.08.015, adding new sections to K.C.C. chapter 21A.06, adding new sections to K.C.C. chapter 21A.55 and adding a new section to K.C.C. chapter 4.08.
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PREAMBLE:
For the purpose of effective land use planning and regulation, the King County council makes the following legislative findings:
1. The Growth Management Act identifies transfer of development credits as an innovative technique for land use management.
2. King County has a long tradition of developing innovative strategies to conserve resource and environmentally sensitive lands that are essential to this region's quality of life.
3. Protecting rural farms and forests, agricultural and open space lands, wildlife habitat, urban separators, regional trail or natural linkages, historic sites and proposed park sites is a goal of the countywide planning policies, the King County Comprehensive Plan and the transfer of development credit (TDC) pilot program established in Ordinance 13274.
4. Countywide planning policy LU-14 establishes that the county may transfer density from rural area properties to other rural or urban area properties in order to secure county open space land, protect a significant natural resource or retain rural resource-based uses.
5. The 1999 adopted budget, Ordinance 13340, includes one million five hundred thousand dollars for purchase of development credits from the rural and urban unincorporated areas and five hundred thousand dollars for receiving area amenities to offset the impacts of increased densities in urban incorporated or unincorporated areas.
6. The city council of Seattle is considering adopting an ordinance to establish a TDC program in the Denny Triangle neighborhood in downtown Seattle, which will be the first Urban C...

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