House Bill 2573 (H-2946.1) adds new requirements and authorities to Washington’s growth management and local planning law. It requires certain supermarkets, full service grocery stores, and pharmacies to give advance notice to cities, counties, and a designated state department before reducing service, closing, proposing sale, or making significant operational changes, and authorizes a city, county, or the state attorney general to seek a superior court injunction against closures or changes that violate those notice requirements. The bill adds a new “Health and food access” goal to the growth management goals and creates new planning tools that allow jurisdictions, in comprehensive plan and zoning updates, to designate properties to remain in uses that provide food, medicine, or health services, and to increase floor area ratio or density where development includes enforceable covenants keeping those essential uses for at least 25 years. The bill creates new fiscal and enforcement mechanisms for vacant properties that previously housed such essential businesses. It authorizes cities, code cities, and counties to impose a quarterly excise tax of up to $500,000 per acre per year on property zoned for and previously used as a supermarket, full service grocery store, or pharmacy that remains vacant, and to impose a nuisance fee of up to $250,000 per acre for specified vacancy-related public safety and blight-prevention purposes; ordinances must allow certain alternative uses or reductions, and property owners who have applied for redevelopment permits are exempt. Excise tax revenues may be used for public safety, increased access to healthy foods and health products, community planning and services, and related local programs. The act also specifies procedural limits on appeals for certain implementing ordinances under chapter 43.21C RCW and places Section 7 as a new chapter in Title 82 RCW. The bill also substantially amends required comprehensive plan elements (amendment to RCW 36.70A.070 and related sections) by adding or expanding detailed requirements for the land use, housing, capital facilities, utilities, transportation, park and recreation, climate change and resiliency, and a new healthy communities element. New requirements include environmental justice considerations, anti-displacement policies, housing capacity and low-income housing inventories, transportation concurrency and multimodal level-of-service standards, greenhouse gas reduction and resiliency subelements prioritizing overburdened communities, and timing and funding conditions for adopting new elements. Several provisions and definitions are not included in the extracted text: the bill’s definitions for “supermarket,” “full service grocery store,” “pharmacy,” “overburdened community,” and the identity of the referenced “department” are not provided here, and portions of Section 7 and other amendments are truncated or missing, so some implementation details and precise statutory language cannot be confirmed from these extracts.

If enacted, owners of properties that previously housed a supermarket, full service grocery store, or pharmacy would face strong financial pressure to return those sites to essential retail uses or approved alternatives: cities and counties could impose an annual-style excise tax collected quarterly up to $500,000 per acre and a nuisance fee up to $250,000 per acre for vacant sites, while owners who apply to redevelop or allow temporary community uses can reduce or avoid those charges. Supermarkets, grocery stores, and pharmacies would generally have to give six months’ or one year’s advance notice of reduced service, sale, or closure (longer in designated overburdened communities), which gives local governments time to seek injunctions, require public notice and translations, and pursue zoning or covenant changes to secure long-term service at those locations. Local governments would gain new revenue streams and stronger planning tools—authority to rezone or require 25-year covenants for essential services, to increase allowable density if such services are guaranteed, and to use excise/nuisance revenue for public safety, food access, and community services—but they also take on new duties and costs for outreach, translation, plan updates, and enforcement. Property owners and retail chains face increased costs and legal risks if they close without the required notice; overburdened communities and tribal members are likely to see fewer sudden service losses and more targeted investments, but key terms (for example the formal definitions of “supermarket,” “overburdened community,” and the identity of “the department”) and some tax timing and procedural details are not provided in the excerpts, leaving aspects of implementation and exact fee timing uncertain.