Some plans are good

It’s good to plan.  Without a plan we can’t really know where we’re going or where we’ll end up.

So, the Thurston Regional Planning Council, with the help of a federal grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, have drafted a plan for how Thurston County will develop in the future.

Called – Sustainable Thurston County – it spells out how Thurston County should look by 2030.

In a nutshell, the plan wants Thurston County to look like – – France.

When the first draft of the plan was circulated earlier this year the business community was up in arms over what it considered an anti-business bias.    After that first row, planners took out some of the more obvious anti-business language, but kept the anti-business and anti-growth elements of the plan intact.

The underlying premise of the plan states that the growth we have now in Thurston County is not sustainable under current plans and trends.   That to make this a place in which we would want to live significant changes would be needed.

This calls for more restrictions on growth, more restrictions on automobiles, more restrictions on business, more restrictions on our current way of life.

A recent public hearing on the plan drew dozens of people.  Some supported the plan, some were highly critical of the plan.

Despite the outcry from business owners, planners are determined to push the Sustainable Thurston plan through the various local governments, many of which have already bought into the concept.

Lets hope this plan – – like many plans before it – – ends up sitting on a shelf somewhere – – just another pipe dream gone up in smoke.

If not, then Thurston County will end up like France – – without the great restaurants.