Lacey, Washington, population 52,592 (2019), lies in Thurston County roughly five miles east of Olympia. In 1994, the City adopted provisions allowing developers within the City to propose receiving sites to accept TDRs transferred from sending sites for Long Term Agriculture under the jurisdiction of Thurston County. (The Thurston County program has a separate profile on this website.)

The shortcode section, Chapter 16.58 of the Zoning Code, simply requires developers who wish to gain bonus density through TDR to produce documentation that the Thurston County TDR Program Administrator has approved and recorded the necessary TDR certificates as well as signed and recorded documents of attachment of the development rights to the subject parcel. The code section also requires the recording of the following information on the face of the receiving site plat: a statement that the development rights used in the plat have been transferred in accordance with the Deed of Transfer required by Thurston County; the volume and page numbers where all deeds of transfer have been recorded; the serial numbers of the TDRs used; and the volume and page number where the recorded document of attachment has been recorded.

Lacey offers four TDR receiving zones. The Mixed-Use Moderate Density Corridor, LMC 16.22, allows residential uses with a density of between eight and 12 units per acre, however, developers can also achieve bonus density by providing “… low-income housing density bonuses or other incentive density bonuses as may be available or determined to be in the best interest of the community by the site plan review committee.” In the Mixed-Use High-Density zone (LMC 16.23), residential uses have a minimum density of 12 units per acre and no density maximum but densities over 20 units per acre require TDRs or the other bonuses listed above. In the Moderate Density Residential Zone, densities are at least eight but not more than 16 units per acre and “…any additional bonus density that might be applicable.” Lacey also uses TDR in its High-Density Residential Zone, (LMC 16.18).     

As of 2015, no TDRs had been used in Lacey because developers have had little desire to exceed baseline densities.