The Washington State Supreme Court, on December 14, ruled that King County can not use "innovative zoning techniques" to convert agricultural resource lands to recreational uses. That is to say, the Court held that Counties cannot gut the Growth Management Act (GMA) for political expediency.

At the heart of the suit was an 18 acre parcel of fallow farmland near Woodinville, the Kaplan property. This parcel is designated as part of the protected Sammamish Valley Agricultural Production District. Last year, the County voted to undesignate it, in favor of constructing three soccer fields.

Before voting to change the property's zoning designation, the County, together with some youth soccer associations, first bought the Kaplan parcel. Then it made its intentions public.

Preservation minded groups, the Puget Sound Farm Trust, Preserve Land for Agriculture Now, and Hollywood Hill Association challenged the plan before the State Growth Management Board (GMB) calling it a "sham," in their filing papers.

The County argued that the GMA allowed it to preserve farmland in "creative and innovative," ways. The County said that it was really swapping the Kaplan parcel for the decades old "Hmong Farm," which had been purchased with money earmarked for "recreational purposes," years ago. The County's logic offered to legitimize the productive Hmong Farm, shamelessly squatting on land that should properly be a soccer field.

The Board agreed with the farmland preservationists. Their decision said that the legislature meant the "creative and innovative ways" were meant to "enhance" the GMA and the preservation of farmland, not dance around it. It said that the County's machinations, by effectively decreasing the viability of farming in the Sammamish valley were "contrary" to the spirit of the GMA in general.

The County appealed to King County Superior Court and got the GMB's ruling overturned.

Which brought the matter to the Supreme Court, whose 8-1 decision, cutting across ideological lines (Richard Saunders, the Wise Use Justice, voted with the majority), upheld the GMB's initial decision against the County. "The [Growth Management Act] mandates conservation of....limited, irreplaceable agricultural resource lands."

Peter Eglick, attorney for the associations that filed the initial suit, commented that the Court "resoundingly reaffirmed the paramount importance of the preservation of both agricultural land and the agricultural industry under Washington's Growth Management Act. The decision sends a clear message to local governments that they cannot manipulate their plans under the act to divert prime agricultural lands to other uses."

Western Washington lost nearly 9,000 acres of farmland per year between 1987 and 1997. As the court pointed out, agricultural land occupies only three percent of the county, while thousands of acres of non-resource land are available for sports fields.

As Richard Grubb, a former Redmond City Council member said, "The symbolism is clear: in a world where 18 to 20 million people die of starvation each year, only a society enamored of its own folly would even think about converting its precious agricultural land to other uses."