Purpose and Need for Updating VISION 2020
The Puget Sound Regional Council is updating VISION 2020, the long-range growth strategy for the central Puget Sound region encompassing King, Kitsap, Pierce, and Snohomish counties. The VISION addresses Growth Management Act (RCW 36.70A) requirements for metropolitan areas to adopt guiding policies and strategies for land use, economic prosperity, transportation, the provision of adequate public services, and the protection of the environment. VISION 2020 contains the region’s multicounty planning policies that are required by the Growth Management Act.
Nearly two decades ago citizens, interest groups, business leaders, and elected officials came together to create a strategy called VISION 2020. The region’s currently adopted vision is to continue to develop economically diverse and environmentally healthy communities framed by open space and connected by a high-quality, efficient transportation system. The adopted vision supports more compact, people-oriented living and working places, and seeks to reverse trends that have created increased numbers of low-density, auto-dependent communities. It focuses a significant amount of new employment and housing into cities with mixed-use centers that are served by an efficient, transit-oriented, multimodal transportation system. A key part of the VISION 2020 strategy has been to contain growth by restricting the expansion of urban areas and conserving surrounding farmlands, forests, and open spaces.
The purpose of the update is to:
• Extend the VISION to 2040 to allow it to continue to lead growth management efforts in the region, and to respond to the needs of 1.6 million more people and 1.1 million more jobs in the region between today and 2040.
• Engage in a public discussion of growth, its impacts, and the region’s preferred strategy for managing growth.
• Strengthen strategies and policies to add detail, clarity and to make implementing and monitoring easier.
• Support related regional goals and initiatives for growth management.
Keep VISION 2020 current, relevant and useful to decision-makers and the public.
