14.04.010 Purpose and goals.
A. The purpose of this chapter is to designate and classify ecologically sensitive and hazardous areas and to protect these areas and their functions and values, while also allowing for reasonable use of private property.
B. This chapter is to implement the goals, policies, guidelines, and requirements of the city comprehensive plan and the Growth Management Act.
C. The city finds that critical areas provide a variety of valuable and beneficial biological and physical functions that benefit the city and its residents, and/or may pose a threat to human safety or to public and private property. The beneficial functions and values provided by critical areas include, but are not limited to, water quality protection and enhancement, fish and wildlife habitat, food chain support, flood storage, conveyance and attenuation of flood waters, groundwater recharge and discharge, erosion control, wave attenuation, protection from hazards, historical, archaeological, and aesthetic value protection, and recreation. These beneficial functions are not listed in order of priority.
D. Goals. By limiting development and alteration of critical areas, this chapter seeks to:
1. Protect members of the public and public resources and facilities from injury, loss of life, or property damage due to landslides and steep slope failures, erosion, seismic events, volcanic eruptions, or flooding;
2. Maintain healthy, functioning ecosystems through the protection of unique, fragile, and valuable elements of the environment, including ground and surface waters, wetlands, and fish and wildlife and their habitats, and to conserve the biodiversity of plant and animal species;
3. Direct activities not dependent on critical areas resources to less ecologically sensitive sites and mitigate unavoidable impacts to critical areas by regulating alterations in and adjacent to critical areas; and
4. Prevent cumulative adverse environmental impacts to water quality, wetlands, and fish and wildlife habitat, and the overall net loss of wetlands, special flood hazard areas, and habitat conservation areas.
E. The regulations of this chapter are intended to protect critical areas in accordance with the Growth Management Act and through the application of the best available science, as determined according to WAC 365-195-900 through 365-195-925, and in consultation with state and federal agencies and other qualified professionals.
F. This chapter is to be administered with flexibility and attention to site-specific characteristics. It is not the intent of this chapter to make a parcel of property unusable by denying its owner reasonable economic use of the property or to prevent the provision of public facilities and services necessary to support existing development and planned for by the community without decreasing current service levels below minimum standards.
G. The city’s enactment or enforcement of this chapter shall not be construed for the benefit of any individual person or group of persons other than the general public. (Ord. 2349 § 1, 2021; Ord. 2315 § 3, 2020; Ord. 1946 § 3, 2005).