The Puget Sound Recovery Community Announces New Tool for Comprehensive Plans

A team focused on Puget Sound recovery has developed the Sound Choices Checklist for Comprehensive Plans, a tool that aligns Puget Sound recovery priorities with comprehensive plan elements. Puget Sound jurisdictions and recovery partners can use the checklist to shape their comprehensive plan updates that set the stage for Puget Sound recovery. 

How do Puget Sound Recovery and Comprehensive Planning relate?  

Puget Sound recovery is guided by the 2022-2026 Action Agenda for Puget Sound. The Action Agenda fulfills the statutory requirements in order to receive (and distribute) funding from EPA through the National Estuary Program (NEP) and Geographic Funds. It includes an implementation plan with 26 strategies, ranging in topics such as habitat, water quality, salmon, human health, economic benefits, climate change, and governance. Puget Sound recovery is supported by Implementation Strategies, which are plans that accelerate progress towards Puget Sound recovery on specific topics within the Action Agenda. Three Strategic Initiative Leads (Stormwater, Shellfish and Habitat) comprised of state agency teams advance the Implementation Strategies through collaboration, partnerships, and funding.

Action Agenda Strategy 1 (Smart Growth) and the Land Development and Cover Implementation Strategy both refer to actions that improve Growth Management Act (GMA) implementation within local jurisdictions’ land use planning and decisions. The GMA requires most counties and cities to update their comprehensive plans every 10 years. The Puget Sound communities are all due to update their comprehensive plans between December 2024 and June 2025. Several Action Agenda strategies and Implementation Strategies include actions and strategies that fall under the mandatory comprehensive plan elements and related topics. Puget Sound recovery depends on the land use decisions informed by the comprehensive plans.  

Who is the checklist for and how can they use it?  

The Sound Choices Checklist is a resource that helps cities and counties evaluate their comprehensive plans for habitat protection and stormwater management goals and polices that align with Puget Sound recovery. This checklist compiles existing best practices and Puget Sound recovery priorities for local planners to consider in comprehensive plan updates. The three purposes are:    

• Encourage local jurisdictions to align their comprehensive plan updates with the Action Agenda and Implementation Strategies.    
• Help jurisdictions recognize which planning policies are already advancing Puget Sound recovery.   
• Provide the Puget Sound Recovery Community with a resource to use when engaging with local comprehensive plan updates.   

The first section of the checklist is organized by the mandatory comprehensive plan elements. The second section includes topic areas that cities and counties might include as additional stand-alone chapters in their plan or incorporate within the mandatory elements.  

The checklist includes links to more detailed resources, such as the WDFW Riparian Management Zone Checklist for Critical Area Ordinances and Puget Sound Regional Council’s Guidance on Integrating Stormwater Solutions into Comprehensive Plans.  

Because comprehensive planning is also important for the Stormwater Strategic Initiative Lead’s (SIL) Implementation Strategies, the Stormwater SIL’s 2023 investment priorities include an upcoming funding opportunity to help jurisdictions implement the Sound Choices checklist. Applications will be available on the Department of Commerce’s National Estuary Program webpage. The SILs are really excited about engaging in the land use and growth management frameworks, and will be looking for other ways to support and involve local jurisdictions in elevating Puget Sound recovery priorities through comprehensive plans. 

How was the checklist updated?  

The original Sound Choices Checklist was developed for the last round of comprehensive plan updates as part of a training workshop for local elected officials. This occurred before the era of Implementation Strategies and long before the 2022-2026 Puget Sound Action Agenda, so it was time for a refresh. An updated Sound Choices Checklist is a way to translate Action Agenda goals and Implementation Strategy priorities into an easy-to-use document ready for comprehensive plan updates.  

The Habitat SIL started the Sound Choices Checklist update by reviewing relevant Action Agenda and Implementation Strategies. The priorities from the Action Agenda and Implementation Strategies built the backbone of the checklist. The Stormwater SIL provided a platform to collect feedback on the original checklist through their Land Use Pod, a group of land use and stormwater practitioners that meet periodically.   

HSIL circulated drafts of the checklist to partners and other experts in the field, including staff at Departments of Commerce, Fish and Wildlife, and Natural Resources, the Puget Sound Regional Council, the Puget Sound Partnership, city and county staff, and recovery partners. HSIL incorporated feedback from each round of review into the checklist. The involvement of partners has led to a robust final product that will serve as a resource to local jurisdictions and the Puget Sound community.