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what to expect in the future. In 2015 Kittitas County and the Cities/Town within the County entered into inter-local agreements to study the 2012 OFM projections. This resulted in the Berk & Associates report, which lists several factors that argue in favor of a higher than medium projection growth rate, including the emergence of Kittitas County as a retirement destination. Also, as housing prices and cost of living have increased in King and Snohomish Counties, the desirability of Kittitas County as a location for long distance commuters has increased substantially. This trend is not expected to change over the next 20-year planning timeline. In addition to the Berk analysis of OF M's 2012 projections, data released by OFM in September 2017 support the County's decision to use a higher than medium projection growth rate. The OFM publication "Growth Management Act Population Projections -2017 Update" (September 2017) estimates Kittitas County's current population at 44,730, while the 2012 medium projection for 2017 was 43,671. In other words, the actual 2017 population is 1,059 more people than was projected 5 years ago. Based on this fact, as well as factors discussed above and contained in the population growth analysis, the County's decision to use 2% as a projected growth rate is well within reason and is defensible by GMA planning standards. 2 .3.1 UGA Designations While the County has elected to use a higher than medium population projection, this has not resulted in a need to expand existing UGAs. Working with the County's cities and town, the decision to maintain existing UGA boundaries is based upon the expectation that the UGAs have adequate capacity to accommodate new growth. Therefore, no UGA boundary changes are proposed at this time. Table 1-3 UGA Acreage in Kittitas County UGA Acres CleEh-1m 796 Ell ensb u rg 4,413 Kittitas 375 Ro slyn 17 So uth Cle Elum 351 TOTAL 5,577 Source : Kittitas County G/5 Based on a 2% growth rate, the cities and town UGAs are expected to increase their populations by a total of 15,143 over the next 20 years. Assuming an average household size of 2.5 persons per household, this would yield a growth of 6,057 households -or units -in the UGAs. As shown in Table 2-3, the total acreage of all UGAs in Kittitas County is 5,577. The expected growth of 6,057 units, therefore, would represent a density of about 1 unit per acre within the UGAs. This density is well within the capacity of the UGAs to absorb growth over the next 20 years . Page 72