Table of Contents

Built Environment and Health

The county’s comprehensive plan explains the county’s role in supporting regional health in the Regional Health and Human Services section. The corresponding goals address various aspects of health, including access, equity, active transportation, mental health, gun violence, and lead exposure.

Food Systems

This county's comprehensive plan integrates support for healthy food, food access, and agricultural protection and production throughout its plan. Food-related policies can be found in the Urban Communities chapter (U 107, U-132a, U-132b, U-139a, U-159), the Rural Areas and Natural Resource Lands chapter (R-517, R-615a, R-642–R-678, R-716–727), and the Economic Development chapter (ED-202, ED-213, ED-303, ED-602, ED-603, ED-604, ED-606).  

Social Equity

The county’s comprehensive plan features addressing health, equity, and social and environmental justice as its fifth guiding principle. It identifies the equity challenges that were exacerbated by the Urban Growth Area adopted in 1994 and proposes strategies for addressing these challenges in each chapter.

Solar Energy

Chapter 8 (Services, Facilities, and Utilities) of the county's comprehensive plan discusses the benefits and current barriers to solar energy use, including a lack of solar siting requirements, solar access protections, and flexible development standards for solar energy systems (p. 8-46).

While Chapter 4 (Environment) of this plan includes commentary and policies that are broadly supportive of all types of renewable energy technologies, Chapter 8 includes two policies related specifically to solar energy use. The first of these policies states that the county encourages solar energy use, solar siting, the use of active and passive solar technologies, and the protection of solar access (Policy F-321). The second policy states that the county should consider passive and active solar energy systems in all county facilities and that these systems should be interconnected with local utilities when a cost-benefit analysis shows net benefits (Policy F-322).

Transfer of Development Rights

The county’s comprehensive plan encourages the use of transfer of development rights as the preferred approach to managing rural areas, natural resource lands, and also urban growth areas. TDR objectives (§3C) support the protection of forestry, farming, habitat, parks or open space. The comprehensive plan covers TDR program framework that includes sending and receiving sites and a TDR bank. King County’s TDR program is considered one of the most successful in the nation.