Clark County’s Concurrency Code Glitch Could Freeze More Than 30 Projects
A quietly discovered inconsistency in Clark County’s transportation concurrency code has put more than 30 planned developments at risk of indefinite delay — and with the Pacific Northwest’s already-short construction season, a delay now could mean losing the entire 2026 building window.
Concurrency law requires that road and intersection capacity keep pace with new development. County engineers evaluate whether corridors meet a 0.9 volume-to-capacity standard, paying particular attention to intersections, which tend to be where traffic actually backs up. The problem: the way the code is written appears to conflict with how county engineers have actually applied it for roughly the past 12 years — and there’s no fast way to fix a code amendment. The normal process takes months, which would blow past the current building season and risk spilling into 2027 and 2028.
A hearing examiner’s ruling on a specific case — a proposed subdivision near 179th Street — is expected to set the tone for how the county handles the broader issue, regardless of how narrowly or broadly that individual ruling is written. For residential contractors and developers with projects anywhere near affected corridors, this is worth tracking closely: a code fix delayed into next year could mean permits sitting in limbo through an entire building season.
This is also a story with real teeth for Clark County residents beyond the industry — it’s a case where an obscure procedural inconsistency in local code could shape how much housing gets built, and how fast, for years.
[Source: Vancouver Business Journal, June 2026]
