This bill creates a new section in chapter 43.31 RCW directing the Department of Commerce to produce a voluntary model urban forestry ordinance and accompanying guidance for local governments. The model must prioritize avoiding, minimizing, and mitigating tree removal for residential development (with different emphases for fewer than two units versus two or more units), include incentives for multi-unit developers to retain trees without reducing density, offer regulatory options to protect trees, and provide mitigation choices such as onand off-site replanting, tree banks, and fee-in-lieu programs. The bill sets requirements for tree banks (location within the impacted geographic area, prioritizing areas with environmental concerns, and using best available science to set planting ratios and appropriate native or climate-adapted species by ecological region), requires consistency with municipal stormwater permit requirements, defines “tree bank” and “urban heat island,” and directs Commerce to issue the initial model ordinance and guidance by January 1, 2029, with review at least every 10 years. Specific numerical planting ratios and exact species lists are not provided in the extracted text and are left to the department to determine. The bill also adds procedural changes for planning disputes and tribal engagement: a department (not named in the extracted text) must provide mediation and facilitation services to resolve disputes between counties and cities and to facilitate timely resolution between a federally recognized Indian tribe and a city or county over a proposed comprehensive plan or development regulations. Upon a tribe’s request for facilitation the department must notify the local government and offer facilitation, and the city or county must delay final adoption for at least 60 days after the notice unless the parties agree to extend the delay. The county or city must not be penalized under the chapter for delays caused by this facilitation process. The department must provide comments summarizing the tribe’s concerns, may arrange a facilitated process using a department-paid expert, and the facilitator must issue a report of findings. The bill directs the same department to provide planning grants to enhance public participation and to develop, in collaboration with specified state agencies and any voluntarily participating tribes, and adopt by rule, a model climate change and resiliency element to help jurisdictions meet RCW 36.70A.070(9). The model element must establish minimum requirements, offer model options and cross-jurisdictional strategies, guide investments in resilient infrastructure including natural infrastructure and measures such as the model urban forestry ordinance, address climate-aggravated natural hazards, and promote cobenefits like mitigation, ecosystem services, and socioeconomic resilience. The extracted text references an amendment to RCW 36.70A.190 but that section’s text is incomplete in the materials provided, and the specific department named in some provisions is not identified in the extracted facts.

If enacted, the Department of Commerce must produce a voluntary model urban forestry ordinance and detailed guidance by January 1, 2029, and update it at least every ten years. Local governments will get ready-made options to encourage retaining trees—especially for multiunit residential projects—through incentives like allowing more density, height, or reduced parking/landscaping requirements, plus templates for mitigation (onsite, tree banks, fee-in-lieu) and criteria for where tree banks should be located. Developers may gain more flexible development choices if they preserve trees, while cities and counties will have new tools and recommended standards to set planting ratios, species guidance, long-term protection rules, and cost and funding considerations; however, specific planting ratios, species lists, and funding responsibilities are left to the department to determine, so some implementation details remain uncertain. The bill also requires “the department” (not named in these extracts) to mediate disputes between tribes and local governments over comprehensive plans, offering facilitation when a federally recognized tribe requests it and triggering at least a 60-day delay before a city or county can take final adoption action; the department may pay for an expert in facilitated cases and local governments are protected from penalties for delays. The department must also develop, with several state agencies and voluntary tribal participation, a model climate change and resiliency element that promotes urban forestry and other natural infrastructure approaches, and provide planning grants to boost public participation. Funding sources and the full scope of departmental duties are not specified in the provided text, so resource and cost impacts on the department and local governments are not fully clear.