Council begins review of draft climate element; members press for clearer targets, costs and tree strategy

The Lacey City Council held a work session April 15 to review draft goals and policies for a new climate element of the city’s comprehensive plan. Staff described two required subelements — a greenhouse-gas (mitigation) subelement and a climate-resiliency (adaptation) subelement — and asked council for policy direction before the next drafts.

"This is going to be the first of three sessions," planner Ryan told the council, outlining the schedule of upcoming work sessions on the comprehensive plan. Staff said the draft follows state Growth Management Act updates and Department of Commerce guidance and uses 2022 as the baseline year for greenhouse-gas inventory work.

The draft resilience framework presented to council contains a dozen high-level goals, including outreach and education, community leadership, resilient land use, nature-based resilience, a thriving urban forest and accessible shelters or "resiliency hubs" for extreme-heat, wildfire smoke and power outages. Staff described implementation avenues such as an updated urban-forestry management plan, the pedestrian and bicycle plan and coordination with regional entities such as the Thurston Climate Mitigation Collaborative.

On greenhouse gas reduction, staff said the draft sets interim targets intended to align with state direction: a 45% reduction below 2022 levels by 2035, 75% below 2022 levels by 2040, and net zero by 2050. Staff also emphasized Commerce’s requirement to address vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) reductions and noted building- and transportation-related emissions are the community’s largest sectors.

Council members pressed staff on practical implications and costs. Councilmember Vasquez asked whether the city should set specific tree-planting targets; staff said the urban-forestry management plan (an implementation document) is the appropriate place for numeric planting and canopy targets and that the plan will be updated in 2026. Several council members raised concerns about how policies that encourage denser infill development would interact with tree canopy goals and stressed the need to balance urban tree canopy retention with housing density.

Council members also asked about retrofitting existing city buildings and potential fiscal impacts. Staff recommended language that calls for consideration of retrofits and energy audits rather than a mandatory retrofit requirement and said audits and capital-facilities planning would inform any later investments. The police-station replacement and other capital projects were discussed as examples where cities weigh retrofit costs and emerging technologies.

Other topics included: undergrounding utility lines as a climate adaptation to reduce outages from fallen trees (staff said the utilities element will explore coordination with private utilities), the city’s cooling-center and resilience-hub planning for extreme heat and wildfire smoke, and how to connect property owners and larger commercial building owners to state and utility rebate programs to accelerate emissions reductions.

Next steps: staff will incorporate council feedback into revised drafts, bring land-use and housing elements for the next session (scheduled May 6), and complete a public draft of the full comprehensive plan this summer with a state-mandated completion target of December 31, 2025. Staff also said they will provide additional technical materials — including greenhouse-gas inventory graphs and the vulnerability and risk assessment appendices — in subsequent briefings.

Why it matters: the new climate element is a state-mandated addition to the comprehensive plan and will shape local policy on development, trees, energy and infrastructure. Council feedback in this round focused on clarity, achievable implementation language, cost and how to prioritize actions to reduce emissions and increase neighborhood resilience.