The Pierce County Council’s vote regarding the lands planned for development into Orton Junction has gone into the appeals process.

As described in the Nov. 30 Sumner Magazine feature, “What now, Orton Junction?,” land preservation advocacy groups Futurewise and Friends of Pierce County had each internally voted to appeal the county council’s decision to amend the Comprehensive Plan; allowing designated Agricultural Resource Lands owned by Orton Farms to be rezoned for commercial and residential development.

As of Dec. 7, Futurewise, American Farmland Trust, Friends of Pierce County and Tahoma Audobon Society and the PCC Farmland Trust officially filed an appeal to the state Growth Management Hearings Board challenging the validity of the agricultural land redesignation.

Tim Trohomovich, Futurewise’s director of planning and law, argued that the redesignation was an unnecessary step for the city of Sumner.

“The county’s own studies show that Sumner and Pierce County already have enough land in the urban growth area for all of their needed growth,” he wrote in a press release regarding the appeal. “There is no need to expand on prime farmland.”

The release challenged the Seven Principles agreement between Orton Farms LLC, the city and Forterra—namely, the section requiring each acre of agricultural land to be replaced by four acres of conservation-eased land.

Dennis Canty, the regional director for the American Farmland Trust, called the compromise a shell game, and suggested the continued application of that formula would only result in continued urban incursions on farmland.

“Before this decision we had 182 additional acres of farmland in the county,” he said. “After this decision we have minus 182 acres of farmland. No matter how you do the math, it’s a net loss of prime farmland.”

Orton Farms and its parent, Investco, naturally took the opposite view.

“We think the county made the ultimate correct decision,” said Tim Farrell, the development manager for Tarragon, Investco’s partnering design firm. “That agricultural land is being replaced.”