MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIAL COUNCIL (MIC) URGES CITY TO REMOVE REDUNTANT, COUNTERPRODUCTIVE LAND USE REGULATION REVIEW FROM TIDEFLATS SUB-AREA PLANNING PROCESS

Tacoma City Council recently directed its Planning Commission to begin reviewing and recommending new “non-interim” Industrial Land Use Regulations by April 2021. This process will effectively create new industrial land use regulations, only to then review the same, newly finalized regulations in the Sub-Area Planning process to be debated all over again. The Manufacturing Industrial Council (MIC) for the South Sound objects to this procedural change, as its redundancy creates an untenable situation for business and industry.
“More than three and a half years ago, the Council initiated a subarea planning process for the Port/Tideflats area,” said Frank Boykin, Director for the Manufacturing Industrial Council. “In doing so, they asked the Planning Commission to consider the need for interim regulations in the Tideflats while the subarea planning process was being conducted.”  
The Planning Commission determined interim regulations were warranted and made its recommendation to City Council.  In November 2017, the City Council adopted Tideflats Interim regulations; since then, they’ve voted five times to renew existing interim regulations.  Boykin says the new directive from the October 2020 meeting “may do more harm than good.” 
 
MIC Position: 

1. Business and industry cannot support a circuitous process creating regulations that may only be temporary. We urge support for predictable business practices and a commonsense approach for land use regulations in the Tideflats. Anything less can alienate investment considerations, discourage greener trends, cost us good family wage jobs in Tacoma and essential marine/port, manufacturing, industrial and technological assets that serve the region.
2. MIC wants to preserve and protect existing industrial lands that support Washington’s trade-based economy, industrial scale manufacturing, and family-wage jobs.
3. MIC opposes regulatory mandates that lack transparent economic, health, environmental, and safety impact analysis.
4. MIC urges a review process for heavy industrial use considerations intended for industrial development, to include evolving to greener economic pathways.
5. MIC member industries want regulations consistent with the GMA’s requirement for including a port element in the City’s Comprehensive Plan per RCW 36.70A.085, and consistent with the City’s Port Container element.

 
The MIC believes in a cleaner, fairer future, and supports government processes that invests in a healthy, greener economy.  Facing two distinct, contentious, and potentially long-term processes simply won’t allow businesses to thrive.

Learn more about the Manufacturing Industrial Council for the South Sound at www.micsouthsound.com

---

RECENT BLOG POSTS