There have been several letters stating Black Diamond is mandated to take the amount of growth proposed by YarrowBay — not true.

The Puget Sound Regional Council, which covers the four county Puget Sound area, establishes guidelines and growth targets. They are embedded in both the countywide planning policies and the King County comprehensive plan.

The amount of growth Black Diamond has approved with the two MPDs — 6,050 homes — far, far exceeds its growth targets. Black Diamond is not mandated to take such growth. There is no state RCW, countywide planning policy, or King County comprehensive plan policy that mandates anything in terms of growth targets. The state Growth Management Act mentions urban growth area cities take their share of growth. In fact, VISION 2040 calls for decreasing the amount of growth targeted to small cities including Black Diamond.

Such mandate statements seem to be used to simply create confusion and controversy and scare people into accepting a fate they need not accept.

The Black Diamond Mayor and City Council circa 2010-2011 were not forced to accept such massive growth. In fact, there has been such an uproar in Black Diamond because they did not impose sufficient mitigation conditions on YarrowBay. This was most conspicuous in the realm of traffic analysis, where they ignored the city’s Hearing Examiner and decided not to use a new traffic model to determine what mitigations truly might alleviate the onslaught of 10,000 more cars and trucks on one-lane roads. Instead, they unfathomably decided to impose this condition after The Villages MPD Phase 1A is fully permitted.

Peter Rimbos

Maple Valley