Clark County's 2026 Comprehensive Plan and UGA Fight

A 20-year plan update, still unresolved as of late 2026

Every county that fully plans under Washington's Growth Management Act must periodically update its comprehensive plan, and Clark County's current cycle has been genuinely contentious. The county council voted 3-2 on April 28, 2026, to advance 'Alternative 2' as the preferred growth scenario for the plan -- a version that substantially expands Urban Growth Area boundaries for several of the county's cities (Battle Ground, Camas, La Center, Ridgefield, Vancouver, and Yacolt), with Ridgefield, Camas, and La Center specifically empowered under this alternative to rezone land currently carrying an agricultural resource designation to meet additional housing and employment demand. As of August 2026, the county was still working through the plan's final details across a series of four meetings scheduled into mid-October, addressing unresolved questions on infrastructure funding, the exact urban growth boundaries, and climate-related provisions -- all of this against an earlier court-ordered deadline of July 31, 2026, that had already passed by the time this later work was underway.

The specific, named acreage proposals

Unlike a generic 'the county is growing' story, this fight has come down to real, specific parcels of land. Battle Ground's urban growth area has been proposed for expansion by roughly 80 acres at the northwest corner of NE 219th Street and NE 92nd Avenue, extending west to NE 87th Avenue. Ridgefield's urban growth area has been proposed for expansion by roughly 111 acres near NE 279th Street and NE 45th Avenue. Other cities, including Camas and La Center, have pursued their own separate expansion and agricultural-resource-land rezone requests as part of the same process. If a parcel you're evaluating sits near any of these areas, or near a comparable edge of another Clark County city, its UGA status and zoning could change directly as a result of this specific plan cycle -- not a distant, abstract policy discussion.

Separately, but relevant to anyone evaluating land inside city limits rather than the unincorporated county, the City of Vancouver adopted its own 'Our Vancouver 2026-2045' comprehensive plan and an updated zoning map and code on June 1, 2026 -- projecting the city will need at least 38,000 additional homes and 43,000 additional jobs to accommodate 81,000 more residents by 2045. Vancouver's plan is a separate, already-adopted municipal document, distinct from the county's still-in-progress comprehensive plan covering unincorporated Clark County and its relationship to the other cities.

What this means for evaluating a Clark County parcel now

1. If a parcel sits near Battle Ground, Ridgefield, Camas, or La Center's current city limits, ask Clark County Community Planning directly whether it falls within one of the specific proposed UGA expansion areas, and if so, what the timeline is for final adoption and any resulting rezone.
2. If a parcel currently carries an agricultural resource designation near one of these cities, understand that this designation could change as part of the final plan -- which cuts both ways: potential future development value if it's brought inside an expanded UGA, or continued agricultural-use restriction if it's left out.
3. For land inside Vancouver city limits, evaluate it under the already-adopted 'Our Vancouver 2026-2045' plan and zoning code directly with the city, not the county's still-pending process.
4. Given the plan's late-2026 timeline was still moving as of this research pass, treat any zoning-designation snapshot here as provisional and reconfirm the plan's final adopted status and any resulting zoning-map changes directly with the county before finalizing a purchase decision.