MONROE — A lush hillside south of the Snoqualmie River offers commanding vistas of the valley and hills below.

Streams fed by classic Pacific Northwest drizzle abound. Yet for all the wet landscape, uncertainty about how much water lies below ground has been a point of contention.

That’s a major issue in a $3 million damage claim brought Bellevue-based developer Highbridge Road LLC. The claim accuses officials from Snohomish County and the Snohomish Health District of misrepresenting the number of houses that could be built on 85 acres, given available well water.

The developer also is accusing the county of unnecessary delays.

“There is a frustration with how the process has gone,” said Patrick Mullaney, a land-use attorney at the Foster Pepper law firm in Seattle, who is representing the developer.

For some neighbors, the damage claim looks like a calculated attempt to get taxpayers to pay for development in an area unsuited for growth.

“They’re claiming that they didn’t know better, but it’s their job to know state water-rights law,” neighbor Laura Hartman said. “It’s not a secret.”

The developer wanted to build 35 homes. The damage claim says county and health district officials originally said that would be fine with the property’s exempt well, a well that requires no new water-rights permit.

Later, the developer learned that using the existing well would restrict it to 14 or fewer homes. To build more homes would have required connecting them to a public water system at significant expense.

“All I can say, when Highbridge went in with a proposal for the exempt wells, they were told that the proposal was feasible and could be approved,” Mullaney said.

Hartman said she’s one of 70 people living near Highbridge Road who are concerned about the proposed development’s impact on country roads, stormwater runoff and groundwater contamination, among other issues.

Water is a particular worry, though, because of the potentially high costs.

Highbridge Road LLC has been trying to build its rural cluster subdivision, Highbridge Estates, for five years.

In its damage claim, filed in June, the developer says it “conducted extensive due diligence” before buying the property for $2.8 million in early 2006. That work supposedly included making sure its subdivision could obtain potable water from its well.

An average home uses about 350 gallons of water daily. State law assumes a domestic well can provide up to 5,000 gallons per day, meaning a maximum of 14 homes for a development served by a single well.

Highbridge submitted its first applications to county planners shortly after buying the property. The application got an initial OK from county planners in 2007, but a hearing examiner later rejected it for a lack of potable water.

Last year, another hearing examiner approved the developer’s application that proposed connecting the homes to the water district. Hartman and others tried unsuccessfully to appeal that decision last year and have a final appeal scheduled before the Snohomish County Council on Feb. 23.

In its damage claim, Highbridge Road LLC says officials at Snohomish County and the Snohomish Health District committed negligence.

The developer is asking to be compensated for more than $1.5 million related to carrying costs, $1 million for extra water infrastructure and $600,000 for additional applications related to connecting to public water. County and health district officials declined to comment, saying they were concerned about future litigation.

Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com.