H-1566.1
SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 1742
State of Washington
69th Legislature
2025 Regular Session
By House Environment & Energy (originally sponsored by Representatives Dye, Doglio, Fitzgibbon, Zahn, Parshley, Duerr, and Pollet)
READ FIRST TIME 02/21/25.
AN ACT Relating to environmentally sustainable urban design; adding new sections to chapter 43.21A RCW; and creating a new section.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. (1) Washington state intends to lead the world in the quality of life and the environmental attributes of its cities. The legislature recognizes that major environmental health disparities exist within urban areas and that the architectural design of urban areas plays a critical role in the function and health of the ecosystems they inhabit.
(2) The legislature also finds that the built environment itself can be a cause of various forms of pollution that harm humans and wildlife. These forms of pollution include, but are not limited to, noise pollution, light pollution, water pollution through impervious surfaces that channel untreated stormwater runoff to waterways, and building materials that radiate heat causing an urban heat island effect. While regulation, incentives, investments, and innovations in the energy and transportation sector will begin to address harmful air emissions in urban areas, the state recognizes that additional policy leadership and creativity must be directed to reducing these additional forms of pollution that are a by-product of a densely built urban environment.