This bill reenacts and amends RCW 36.70A.130 to require counties and cities to continually review their comprehensive land use plans and development regulations and to take formal legislative action (a resolution or ordinance after notice and public hearing) that documents the review and any revisions or states why no revision was needed. It defines “updates” and “legislative action,” requires jurisdictions to establish and widely publicize a public participation program, allows very small cities/towns to opt out of full review under specified population and proximity criteria while still requiring updates to critical areas regulations and capital facilities and transportation elements, and limits plan amendment cycles to no more frequently than once per year except for enumerated exceptions (including adoption of subarea plans with SEPA review, certain economic development subarea plans tied to a pilot, shoreline master program actions, capital facilities amendments concurrent with budgets, planned actions under RCW 43.21C.440, and housing element amendments tied to compliance determinations). The bill imposes substantive review duties on counties that designate urban growth areas (UGAs): plans and UGA densities must be revised to accommodate projected urban growth for the next 20 years on the schedules provided. If a county determines a UGA revision is not required but development pressure exceeds available developable lands, the county may nevertheless revise a UGA only if eight specific requirements are met, including that the revision not increase the total UGA surface area; added areas may not be designated agricultural, forest, or mineral resource lands of long-term commercial significance; less than 15% of added areas may be critical areas other than critical aquifer recharge areas, and critical aquifer recharge areas must have been previously designated and retained with no net increase in such areas; added areas must be suitable for urban growth; necessary transportation and capital facilities and funding must be identified; the UGA must not be larger than needed to accommodate planned growth plus a market-supply factor; areas removed must not include urban growth or urban densities; and the revised UGA must be contiguous and not increase pressures to urbanize rural or resource lands. The bill also makes procedural and funding-related changes: it sets grouped deadlines by county for required reviews and later periodic review schedules, allows small counties and small cities meeting population and growth thresholds to comply within 24 months after their subsection (5) deadline, encourages state agencies to provide technical assistance, ties eligibility and preferences for certain state grants, loans, pledges, or financial guarantees to compliance or substantial progress (with “fewer than 12 months out of compliance” counting as substantial progress and certain submissions under RCW 36.70A.835 counting as evidence of progress), requires specified counties and cities to submit implementation progress reports five years after plan review with department guidelines for indicators and measures, requires jurisdictions that have not implemented required actions to adopt a work plan and complete work within two years, and provides that jurisdictions required to review by December 31, 2024 and required to include a climate change and resiliency element must incorporate that element in the first implementation progress report if specified funding is appropriated by December 31, 2027. The text in the provided extracts is incomplete: the identity of “the department” is not specified, subsection (6) is truncated, and several referenced subsections and definitions are not fully included, so some implementation details and cross-references are unclear from the provided material.

If enacted, counties and cities will need to carry out scheduled, recurring reviews of their comprehensive plans and development rules and document the results, with grouped deadlines now stretching through 2027 and recurring 10-year cycles afterward. Small towns can avoid a full review if they meet narrow population and proximity tests but must still update critical areas and capital facilities/transportation elements; counties that set urban growth areas face tighter limits when adjusting those boundaries (for example, no net increase in critical aquifer recharge areas, no expansion of total UGA surface area, and requirements to identify needed facilities and funding). Jurisdictions that took watershed funding face constraints on changing agricultural-related critical area rules and must do a ten-year review unless local benchmarks are met. The direct impacts fall hardest on county and city governments, which will need to budget staff time, public outreach, environmental review, and possibly capital spending plans to meet the reviews and the new documentation requirements; failing to meet the schedules or show substantial progress can make a jurisdiction ineligible for certain state grants, loans, or funding preferences, while small jurisdictions get additional 24-month flexibility and state agencies are encouraged to provide technical assistance. Important implementation details are missing from the extracted text—most notably the identity of "the department," some grant and pilot-project rules, and the full text of subsection (5)—so the exact scope of funding consequences and some procedural steps remain unclear.