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WWU urban planning students help launch Washington State Zoning Atlas

First-of-its-kind interactive tool aims to make it easier to compare zoning across jurisdictions and identify statewide trends

by Jennifer Nerad

University Communications

The Washington State Zoning Atlas compiles data from 39 counties and 281 cities into standardized categories for easy comparison. Built on the ArcGIS platform, users can pan around the map, enter a location, customize layered data, and download data.

Washington state’s Growth Management Act grants cities and counties the power to write and manage their own zoning rules to best serve their communities.

This means that codes and definitions can mean different things in different parts of the state. This inconsistency can make it difficult for policy makers, planners, architects, researchers or anyone wanting to look at an overall picture of how zoning shapes communities.

That picture is about to get a lot simpler with the recent launch of the Washington State Department of Commerce’s Washington State Zoning Atlas (WAZA), an online tool and downloadable database that translates zoning and land use information into standardized categories for easy comparison.

Over the last eighteen months, Associate Professor Tammi Laninga, who teaches in Western Washington University’s Urban Planning and Sustainable Development program, led a handful of Western students as they combed through city and county zoning rules to contribute to the Washington State Zoning Atlas.

WWU students Maddie Musquiz (’25, Urban Sustainability), Jovie Anderson (’25, Urban Planning and Sustainable Development), Ella Kuharick (senior, Urban Planning & Sustainable Development), Lael Williams (senior, Urban Planning and Sustainable Development), and Joshua Khan (’25, Urban Planning and Sustainable Development) joined four University of Washington Seattle students as zoning analysts on the project.

At the start of the project, Laninga led a joint course for 30 students from WWU and three other universities to learn about zoning in Washington and test methods of collecting data.

“What was so interesting was how every community’s code had something kind of unique about it. The students learned very quickly that zoning gets really complicated,” Laninga said. “Like, how do you go from hundreds of unique zoning codes to something that is semi-standardized? That was the challenge and that was what the class helped with. By the time the class was over, we had a really solid protocol and a solid way forward.”

The atlas is built on the ArcGIS platform, which allows users to turn on and off layers, customizing the visualization of data. Land use categories, allowed uses, development standards like building height, parking requirements, and density.

Funded by the Washington State Department of Commerce, the Zoning Atlas was led by MAKERS architecture and urban design, Commerce’s Growth Management Services unit, BHC Consultants, and students from WWU, Eastern Washington University, the University of Washington Tacoma, and the University of Washington Seattle.

Curious how you could use this tool? Check out Commerce’s “How Could I Use the Atlas?” for a handful of examples of the Washington State Zoning Atlas in action.

Learn more about WWU’s Urban Planning and Sustainable Development program.

Jennifer Nerad covers Western's College of the Environment and College of Business and Economics for the Office of University Communications. Have a great story idea? Reach out to her at neradj@wwu.edu.