PORT ANGELES — Clallam County has won a key battle in its long war over zoning.

The Western Washington Growth Management Act Hearings Board on Tuesday found the county’s rural zoning is valid and compliant with the Growth Management Act.

Moreover, the board found the county’s amended limited areas of more intensive rural development, or LAMRIDs, are compliant.

“My office successfully argued to the growth board that Seattle special interest group Futurewise’s and local group Dry Creek Coalition’s ‘one size fits all’ approach to rural zoning failed to acknowledge the unique, local circumstances in rural Clallam County and ignored this county’s right to control its own future,” Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly said in a statement.

“This is an unprecedented win for private property owners in Washington state, where county after county in recent years has instead chosen to abandon the battlefield over rural lands and settle for one-dwelling-for-five-acres.”

Futurewise has 10 days to appeal the board’s ruling.

The growth board in April 2008 found that portions of the county’s comprehensive plan didn’t jibe with the Growth Management Act.

Double track response

The county launched a double-track response, enacting interim zoning rules so planners could comply with the 1990 legislation while appealing parts of the ruling in court.

Clallam County Superior Court Judge Ken Williams in June reversed the hearings board’s April 2008 finding of GMA noncompliance.

Interim zoning downzoned the county’s rural moderate — lands with one home permitted for every 2.4 acres — to the one-house-per-5-acre rural low.

Innovative techniques

Meanwhile, planning manager Steve Gray and others in the Department of Community Development developed innovative techniques for rural lows previously zoned rural moderate.

With the exception of a LAMRID or commercial forest parcel, the owner of a home in the “rural neighborhood conservation zone” would have these options:

• An overlay option for 11 acres or less. If land within 500 feet of the prope