Commentary

<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   HAVE YOUR SAY Feel strongly about something? Share it with the community by writing a letter to the editor. You’ll need to include your name, address and daytime phone number. (We’ll only publish your name and hometown.) We reserve the right to edit letters, but if you keep yours to 300 words or less, we won’t ask you to shorten it. If your letter is published, please wait 30 days before submitting another. Send it to: E-mail: letters@heraldnet.com Mail: Letters section The Herald P.O. Box 930 Everett, WA 98206 Fax: 425-339-3458 Have a question about letters? Contact Carol MacPherson (cmacpherson@heraldnet.com or 425-339-3472).   Published: Sunday, July 20, 2008 GUEST COMMNETARY Land use codes need immediate attention By Susan Keacher and Tom Baunsgard Clearly written Snohomish County codes, strongly upheld, are an absolute requirement for effective management of land development. Sometimes codes are unclear. Sometimes interpretations turn generously to the benefit of a developer. Sometimes it appears the codes and state laws are simply ignored. The public is questioning the integrity of the Snohomish County planning department and its interpretation and administration of codes. Dozens of cases are before the county's hearing examiner. Thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of citizens' time have been spent in challenges. It's way past time to fix this problem. Codes must be clear and easy to understand and it shouldn't take expensive lawyers and consultants to untangle what codes mean. In rural Port Susan Bay, county staff approved the development of a 100-unit, high-rise apartment on 20 acres, with 30 protected acres down the road. The county code explicitly does not allow urban development in rural areas, nor does it allow for open space to be non-contiguous to the building site. Yet county staff approved this permit. Again, in the Warm Beach area in north county, planning staff has declared a "loophole" for development of duplexes on 27 substandard lots. The omission of duplexes from the language is ludicrously being held as an allowance for them, and is giving other developers an in-road for development of more substandard lots throughout the county. Should omission of a word mean it is allowed? We don't think so. Re-interpreting and outright ignoring the code doesn't stop there. Rural cluster subdivision codes have continually been a huge problem for rural residents, especially their impacts on water supply. For years county staff has recommended approval of too many homes per cluster, and now the state Department of Ecology has warned the county to stop this illegal practice, yet we still see the county trying to circumvent the law. Examples include: n Treating one rural cluster subdivision as two in the Jim Creek area North of Arlington (Highlands North and South) to circumvent the water rights law. n Allowing for exempt wells in the Highbridge Estates rural cluster subdivision that would withdraw more than the legal amount of water from wells, counting on DOE to ignore the issue. n Dismissing the county's own groundwater study, which demonstrated the Quinn's Crossing Street of Dreams rural cluster subdivision would produce high susceptibility to septic contamination from increased density. n Allowing for permits in the 7 Lakes area despite the fact that no viable water source is available. There is a reason the DOE is trying to hold the county to existing law for ensuring sufficient water. The environmental impact is huge and public safety is being sacrificed. The Street of Dreams development tragically hit by arson demonstrated this problem perfectly when the area residents were left without water for three days after the fire department put out the blazes. Interpretation and circumvention has even hit our precious designated farmland. Large signs on Marsh Road and even a Herald article are showcasing 1-acre farm lots for sale in the farmland and floodplain of the Snohomish River. While the county knows that the farmer/developer is not meeting code, they are not quite sure what they should do about it and are now asking their lawyers for an interpretation. For us, 10-acre zoning means exactly that. That alone should stop the development and there should be no selling of the land until codes are met. Fully Contained Communities are allowed by county code. They allow a new city in rural areas. With an FCC application expected soon, interpretations of FCC code are still being debated. Despite a request for clear interpretation of when these applications vest, citizens have yet to receive it. No one from the county has been able to tell the public definitively when an FCC could vest. Snohomish County's planning department has a responsibility to the public to protect our health, safety and welfare. A hard look at the county's land use and building codes must start now and continue until the codes are clear to anyone who reads them. We can't continue to rely on interpretations that have proven time and time again to go in favor of the developer, nor can we continue to rely on the planning director's discretion when there is a question. People can't afford the continued costs of fighting bad decisions. This problem affects our quality of life, now and in the future, and the county needs to solve it. Susan Keacher has lived in Snohomish County since 1983 and has testified in numerous hearings and public processes involving land use decisions administered by Snohomish County's Planning Department. Tom Baunsgard is a 25-year resident of rural Monroe and believes in the dictionary definition of rural: "of or relating to the country, country people or life, or agriculture," and is working to keep it that way.

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