A new online mapping tool from the city of Vancouver is making it easier for residents to understand how proposed land use changes could affect their neighborhoods. The land use changes are part of the city’s ongoing work to update its 20-year growth plan. Washington’s Growth Management Act requires most cities and counties to update their comprehensive growth plans on a regular schedule. The most recent update is due Dec. 31. The process for updating the growth plan is complex, labor intensive and takes years to complete. As part of the update, Rebecca Kennedy, deputy director of community development, said the city is required to analyze a range of potential changes and plan land use. These potential changes include population growth, housing needs, demand for jobs, economic development, public facilities and services, and environmental needs. “We know that’s hard for people to conceptualize on a large scale, so the point behind the story map and the online mapping tool is really to allow people to visualize and see it at a finer grain scale,” she said. “And they can relate it to things they know, like their home, where their property is, their neighborhood, the park they love, the school that their kids go to.”

Kennedy said knowing about these or any proposed changes early on gives residents an opportunity to speak up and voice their concerns. The city is also required to publish a draft environmental impact statement, or DEIS, a document outlining any environmental impacts related to the city’s actions. “Most people do not resonate with the term ‘draft environmental impact statement.’ It’s a very long, technical document,” Kennedy said. “What we’ve been doing with this map for the last few months is just trying to socialize it, help people understand the context.” For example, someone living in an area currently zoned for low-density residential use could see if their neighborhood will be rezoned for high-density housing. Or, a resident living near a creek or wetland will be able to see if the area is slated to be used for commercial or industrial uses.

Once the draft environmental statement is released, residents will have 45 to 60 days to submit public comment. Vancouver is one of a handful of cities not asking to expand its urban growth boundary, the area outside of city limits targeted for future annexation. “We’ve done our own analysis of our capacity for land and jobs, and we believe we have plenty within our urban growth area to meet that,” Kennedy said. “We do not support any expansion of the urban growth area.” Vancouver’s population is expected to reach 268,000 by 2042, up about 40 percent from the 2020 census count of 190,915. The city will need to add 38,000 new housing units, which can be a single-family home, apartment or other housing type, over the next 20 years.

“That’s about the same number of housing units that has come on the market per year in Vancouver over the last four years,” Kennedy said. “The growth we need to see to hit those targets isn’t really that different from what we’ve been seeing over the last five to six years.” The city’s 20-year target comes out to 1,900 new housing units per year. The annual average over the past five years has been about 1,700 units per year. In 2020, a total of 1,064 new units were added while 2,161 were added in 2021 and 2,009 were added in 2023. Vancouver will also look to add 40,000 to 45,000 more jobs over that same 20-year period. Kennedy said Vancouver already has a significant amount of land designated for mixed-use or employment needs. While some residents might like to see growth slow down or even come to a complete stop, Kennedy said that’s not realistic.

“If you don’t manage and plan for growth, you’re not going to be able to serve it. You’re not going to be able to mitigate some of the more challenging parts of it,” she said. Housing is perhaps the easiest example for residents to understand because it’s something many people have already experienced, Kennedy said. Because Vancouver hasn’t seen enough new housing units built to keep pace with demand, that has created a supply deficit and raised housing prices faster than wages. The next step in the comprehensive plan update process is for the draft environmental study to be published. Kennedy said the draft should be published in May, with the public comment period to follow.

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