By Pat Jenkins The Dispatch The new school year is underway with a land-use-related load off the minds of officials in the Bethel and Eatonville school districts. An updated comprehensive plan for Pierce County doesn't call for a broader land-use zoning that was seen by the districts as trouble for their taxpayers and for keeping up with any future need for more schools. The County Council in July approved a comprehensive plan that included a provision for protecting 23,000 acres through zoning called Agricultural Resource Land (ARL). Proposals to increase the amount of land under that zoning was opposed by private landowners and school districts who claimed a higher amount would negatively affect property values, which in turn would harm the districts' ability to fund their operations through property taxes. In the Bethel School District, concern centered partly on proposals that would have blocked the construction of a fourth comprehensive high school and increased property tax burdens on homeowners and commercial landowners, who might have been less likely to support future levies and bond measures, according to superintendent Tom Seigel. In a letter to the council and McCarthy last spring, Seigel urged the county to remove all school district property from any consideration for ARL zoning. He also called for more fiscal analysis and public awareness of the ARL's possible impacts. "This is not a simple change that is being proposed, but has broad, long-lasting consequences for school districts, especially Bethel,GÇ¥ Seigel said. Similar concerns were voiced by two Eatonville School District officials GÇô School Board member Jeff Lucas and superintendent Krestin Bahr GÇô when they testified at a council hearing in June. Bahr said that while no Eatonville school property was proposed for ARL, the district would feel "a fiscal impact from a sweep of tens of thousands of acres" into ARL. She also said there was "no study or analysis" to support more land under that zoning. Lucas said any zoning that might prevent schools from being built would deny rural areas the ability to meet their needs. The Eatonville board earlier this year passed a resolution formally opposing new designation of land as ARL. The council agreed to keep the 23,000-acres designation at least until 2017, when the issue of how much land should be ARL can be studied again. The council's action is tied to the latest update of the county's comprehensive plan. State law requires counties to update their plans as an ongoing effort to manage development and population growth through land-use regulations. Pierce's updated plan has been vetoed by County Executive Pat McCarthy, who opposed a council-approved element involving commercial land-use in the Frederickson area that's unrelated to the agriculture issue. County planning officials call the ARL classification a "resource-based zone." The designation is intended to promote long-term, commercially significant uses of agricultural resources. ARL sites contain what is considered prime, high-yield agriculture soil and are at least five acres in size or include contiguous parcels spanning five acres or more.
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