EVERETT — When elected leaders passed an emergency building ban in areas around the Oso mudslide, they bought time to draft new rules for construction near steep, potentially dangerous slopes anywhere in Snohomish County.
A year later, those regulations remain a work in progress.
The County Council is likely to extend the slide-zone building moratorium through the end of the year as work continues on rules for the whole county.
“I intend to continue to keep trying to get the county to improve the regulations,” said County Council Chairman Dave Somers, who has pushed for more aggressive building restrictions since the disaster. “We still have what I consider crude and rudimentary information and warning systems for geologically hazardous areas.”
The Oso mudslide struck the Steelhead Haven neighborhood and Highway 530 on the morning of March 22, 2014. Debris from the 600-foot-high hillside traveled thousands of feet, killing 43 people and destroying some 40 homes.
The County Council first imposed the six-month moratorium in June 2014. They extended it for another six months in December. They’re set to consider doing that again at a hearing scheduled for 10:30 a.m. June 24.
There are actually two separate moratoriums. One encompasses the immediate, mile-square area hit by the slide and is focused on the Steelhead Haven neighborhood. The other extends upstream along the North Fork Stillaguamish River, where the slide is thought to have changed flood patterns.
Infrastructure projects are excluded from the ban.
No building codes have been changed in Snohomish County since the disaster. That could happen soon when the county updates its critical areas regulations. The update is required under the state Growth Management Act. Geologically hazardous areas — including danger zones for landslides, earthquakes, mines, erosion, volcanos and tsunamis — are just part of the update. Other areas focus on wetlands, wildlife habitat, flood zones and aquifer-recharge zones.
The county’s existing critical-areas rules would not have triggered any special consideration for the houses hit by the Oso landslide. All stood beyond the 300-foot setback from the toe of the slide, as defined in the code. The setback doesn’t prohibit building in those areas, but it does require a geotechnical engineering study to obtain building permits.
Those rules could change this summer or fall.
The county planning department and Planning Commission have recommended changes to rules for building in or around potential landslide zones. Among the suggestions are expanding the distance from a steep slope defined as landslide hazard area; making the geotechnical studies required in the landslide areas more rigorous; and creating requirements to alert future buyers to potential landslide dangers.
The proposed rules would apply to slopes of 33 percent or greater. They would define a landslide hazard area by the height of the slope, regardless of steepness or soil characteristics. They would quadruple the hazard area as measured from the bottom of a steep slope and triple it from the top. For a 100-foot-tall slope, the new rules would mandate a geotechnical study to obtain building permits within 200 feet of the bottom of the slope and 100 feet of the top.
The proposals have met with some skepticism.
“This new regulation is kind of a one-size-fits-all approach,” said Guy Palumbo, the Planning Commission chairman and the only commission member who voted against the recommendations. “It seems like way too blunt of an instrument. There has to be a better way.”
The prospect of recording a specific landslide hazard notice on a property title has been a source of concern for real estate agents and home builders. The Snohomish County Camano Association of Realtors isn’t opposed to the idea but wants to ensure the information is accurate before it becomes a permanent record, especially as science and improved maps change the understanding of landslide risks, spokesman Ryan McIrvin said.
“Nobody wants to stop information from getting out there,” McIrvin said. “It protects the Realtor, it protects the homeowner.”
The notices, under the current proposal, would apply to new construction and substantial remodels, not to all structures.
County planning director Clay White said the recommendations reflect a first phase of the work on landslides that the County Council requested last year. There’s more work in years to come.
“We tried to respond to a few areas where the council could choose, if they wanted, to increase the amount of regulations,” he said. “We’ve provided them with options.”
The county’s work could benefit from state efforts to redouble the use of precision aerial-mapping technology called lidar.
The state Department of Natural Resources received Gov. Jay Inslee’s approval this spring for an extra $6.6 million to add 10 new staff geologists — tripling the current staff — and expanding geologic mapping. Like all else in state government, funding to make that a reality is in limbo while lawmakers try to agree on a budget by the beginning of the fiscal year, July 1.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.
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