King County land-use ordinances have residents concerned

Published 12:47 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

PRESTON – Area farmers and rural land owners concerned that proposed changes to King County’s critical land use ordinances will infringe upon their right to develop land still have the opportunity to be heard.

The proposed changes to the current ordinance, otherwise known as Critical Areas Ordinances (CAO), was recently approved by a senior policy team on March 28. A second pubic review draft of the proposed updates will be released in May and public comments will be accepted from May 15 through June 15, 2003.

Bill Knutsen, a former King County dairyman who has taken an active role in this issue, is pleased that the county wants to get more input from farmers.

“It’s more or less a given that this calls for farmers in King County to write some of their own regulations,” said Knutsen. “The typical reaction of a bureaucrat is to regulate something to save it, but you can also regulate something like agriculture to death.”

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