Restoration planning

STEP 4 - Review and Update SMP Components (and Adopt a Restoration Plan)

The Guidelines make clear that the inventory and characterization of ecosystem processes and shoreline functions is to be used to design all the SMP policies and regulations, not merely restoration planning. See WAC 173-26-201(3)(e), (f), and (g). For example, the SMP policies and regulations include how local government uses the familiar “environment designations” - urban, rural, conservancy, etc. These environment designations provide an SMP equivalent of a zoning map and are a basic tool for saying what shoreline uses are acceptable or not in a particular designation. Most local governments already have such designations, and will be using the inventory and characterization to update, fine-tune, and to apply such designations in the manner described in the new Guidelines.

Each master program also includes general provisions on particular development requirements and common uses of the shorelines, and policies and regulations on the alteration of natural shoreline conditions in aid of development. Together, all the provisions of a master program should ensure that development activities under the master program not cause "net loss" of the “ecological functions” that are identified and characterized. The “general principles” of the Guidelines point out that development shall be regulated to ensure that no development causes a net loss of shoreline ecological functions, and that cumulative development and uses not cause any net loss in the shoreline ecological functions. WAC 173-26-186(8)

The restoration plan must be coordinated with these other components of a master program - a local government cannot simultaneously plan for intense uses of an area that it also identifies as a priority for restoration. Under the Guidelines, restoration planning has a particular purpose that exists separate from development regulations. The Guidelines expressly focus restoration requirements on the use of master program "policies," as opposed to “development regulations.” Under the guidelines, local governments are not required to plan to have individual permittees restore past damages to an ecosystem as a condition of a permit for new development, although the permittee must fully mitigate for any new harms.

Restoration planning should be focused on tools such as economic incentives, broad funding sources such as Salmon Restoration Funding, volunteer programs, and other strategies. WAC 173-26-186(8)(c) and WAC 173-26-201(2)(f) (explaining the “basic concept” of restoration planning). Furthermore, because restoration planning must reflect the individual conditions of a shoreline, restoration planning provisions contained in the Guidelines expressly note that a plan will vary based on:

• Size of jurisdiction
• Extent and condition of shorelines
• Availability of grants, volunteer programs, other tools
• The nature of the ecological functions to be addressed.

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