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King County Comprehensive Plan: Four to One Program

The King County Four-to-One Program ("program") is an innovative land use management technique authorized under the Washington State Growth Management Act that seeks to create a contiguous band of natural area adjacent to the original Urban Growth Area (UGA) boundary adopted in the 1994 King County Comprehensive Plan. Since inception of the program, about 360 acres have been added to the UGA while nearly 1,300 acres of natural area have been permanently protected.

Overview

  • Rural Area zoned land may be added to the UGA in exchange for permanently protecting natural areas along the UGA boundary. The preserved area must be at least four times the area of the new urban land.
  • Development on the new urban land must be for residential uses and has other restrictions and requirements related to density levels, infrastructure and service provision, annexation, affordable housing, and more.
  • Protection of the new natural area land has restrictions and requirements related to buffering, allowed uses, location on the project site, landscaping, protection of environmental features, and more.
  • Review and decision-making on Four-to-One projects ("projects") includes consultation with a variety of parties, including but not limited to adjacent cities, local service providers, Indian tribes, and community members.
  • Projects are approved at the discretion of the County as part of an update to the Comprehensive Plan and ratified as an amendment to the UGA boundary in the Countywide Planning Policies.

To Learn More

The primary provisions guiding the program are found at Countywide Planning Policies DP-17 and DP-18B, Comprehensive Plan policies RP-120 through RP-126, and King County Code sections 20.18.170 through 20.18.190. Parties interested in the program should familiarize themselves with these provisions and, following this, contact the staff noted on this webpage.

A summary of the program provisions can also be found here.

 

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