Whenever a county legislative authority has approved by motion and certified all or part of a comprehensive plan, no road, square, park or other public ground or open space shall be acquired by dedication or otherwise and no public building or structure shall be constructed or authorized to be constructed in the area to which the comprehensive plan applies until its location, purpose and extent has been submitted to and reported upon by the planning agency. The report by the planning agency shall set forth the manner and the degree to which the proposed project does or does not conform to the objectives of the comprehensive plan. If final authority is vested by law in some governmental officer or body other than the county legislative authority, such officer or governmental body shall report the project to the planning agency and the planning agency shall render its report to such officer or governmental body. In both cases the report of the planning agency shall be advisory only. Failure of the planning agency to report on such matter so referred to it within forty days or such longer time as the county legislative authority or other governmental officer or body may indicate, shall be deemed to be approval.
RCW 36.70.540
Referral procedure—Reports.
Known as the Planning Enabling Act
The act spans §§ 36–36 (115 sections).
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case 75 Wash. 2d 715 - Smith v. Skagit County (1969)
Most recently applied in 74 Wash. App. 637 - Save Our State Park v. Board of Clallam County Commissioners (July 1994)
1991 c 363 s 80; 1963 c 4 s 36.70.540
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Washington State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Washington statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.