Former engineer: Snohomish County rushed plans for Eastview development

EVERETT — David Irwin cried as he typed his resignation letter.

For 17 years, he served Snohomish County as an engineer, but stress from the job had taken a toll.

Two doctors ordered him to take time off work. He hadn’t been sleeping. His family could see him breaking down.

In April 2024, Irwin resigned.

“It was one of the toughest decisions I had to make, to let go of a dream and have faith that there is something better,” he said. “Even though I loved my job so much so that it didn’t feel like work, (county planning) management put me in an impossible situation.”

But a year later, Irwin remains attached to the last project he reviewed — despite the associated pain.

The project in question started in 2022 when Seattle-based developer Pacific Ridge Homes submitted plans for Eastview Village. The proposed development is planned roughly 5 miles east of Mill Creek and 3 miles northwest of Cathcart just west of Highway 9, off the south side of Highway 96.

Irwin was the county’s lead transportation review engineer, and it was his job to make sure developers’ applications met necessary state and county transportation codes. He reviewed Pacific Ridge’s application to build 1,311 residential units — a mix of houses and apartments — plus 61,000 square feet of commercial space.

Right away, he identified red flags — unsafe intersections for schoolchildren, underestimated traffic issues and a bypassed environmental review. Irwin believed these were clear violations of county and state law, and he told his bosses and Pacific Ridge officials such.

But nobody listened, Irwin said.

Mike McCrary, director of the county’s Planning and Development Services department, and the engineer hired to replace Irwin, Michael Huey, said Eastview complies with code and the development went through a vigorous review process. It was sent to County Hearing Examiner Peter Camp for approval in November 2024.

During the approval hearing, Irwin testified before Camp about his findings in the Pacific Ridge application. He wasn’t the only one with concerns about the project, with a members nearby flood district and many community members testifying as well.

But in February, and again in April after a round of reconsideration appeals, Camp approved the Eastview application.

Less than a month later, more than 40 residents, including backers from Greenleaf Housing Association and the nonprofit Save Bothell, filed an appeal over the decision with the County Council.

A council hearing is scheduled for July 2.

“None of us are against building homes,” said Debbie Wetzle, a neighbor of Eastview’s proposed site who filed the appeal. But the county is “just skirting (Eastview) under all these little, fancy rules for the developers at the expense of those of us that live here.”

‘That sudden brake check’

In 2015, D.R. Horton, the country’s largest homebuilder, bought Pacific Ridge. The company declined to comment on the project but currently has 39 homes for sale in the county with an average price tag of just under $1 million.

In the almost two decades of Irwin’s work for the county, he said Eastview was the second-largest project application he had reviewed. And as he went through 2,875 pages of plans, he noted faults.

Just east of Glacier Peak High School and Little Cedars Elementary School, Pacific Ridge plans to put in an intersection where 11 lanes of traffic, not including additional bike lanes, will converge. In the submitted plan, the intersection will only have stop signs.

The plan includes concrete islands in the middle of the roads to help pedestrians avoid cars, but with so many vehicles moving, especially during school rush hours, Irwin said it’s not enough.

“It’s hard to look over someone else’s car hood to see what might be on the other side of their vehicle,” he said. Inching forward, cars looking for space might not see 5-year-olds trying to cross the street.

“We’ve all had that sudden brake check — ‘Oh my goodness, I almost hit that person,’” Irwin said. “If you’re having these thousands of kids and people walking across this road, why are we doing all-way stops on this massive intersection?”

For Irwin, it was a no-brainer — this intersection should have stoplights.

While there’s no cut and dry code saying a number of lanes requires a signal versus a stop sign, Irwin traced back through the state’s traffic codes to explain why such a big intersection near schools could be approved without signals.

All jurisdictions in Washington follow U.S. Department of Transportation’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. The manual lays out when projects should use traffic lights or signals based on peak-hour traffic numbers, pedestrian use and school crossings data.

Pacific Ridge’s analysis shows the intersection traffic falling short of warranting a traffic light, but Irwin said the analysis is skewed because it didn’t run models when morning rush hour will coincide with school drop-offs, and ignores how traffic will pile up at the intersection due to short turning lanes, essentially leaving one of the lanes useless.

Additionally, Irwin said he believes the development doesn’t meet the county’s design standards, which should have required more traffic routes instead of funneling more cars to one overloaded intersection.

If the intersection is built, in Irwin’s mind, it’s a matter of when — and not if — a child or other pedestrian will get hit.

“It causes shudders in me, the potential and the foolishness of their plans,” said Joan Thomas, a county resident who signed the county council appeal against Eastview.

‘You can’t just skip it’

The county allowed Pacific Ridge to be exempt from the State Environmental Protection Act because it considers the project to be infill development — or development filling urban growth areas in the county.

Infill development projects can be exempt from SEPA, but Irwin doesn’t think Eastview meets the requirements to forgo the review.

The urban growth area where the development would be located, called the Silver Firs Gap, has already drastically exceeded the county’s latest projections, Irwin said.

A County Council staff report shows that in 2022, the year Pacific Ridge filed its application for Eastview, the area already had enough development applications to exceed proposed targets by 106%.

“Ignoring the issue and allowing growth to exceed adopted targets has consequences,” the report states. “In this scenario, planning for public facilities such as roads, schools, and sewer systems becomes inadequate.”

Because the project exceeds the growth previously taken into account, Irwin said developers need to complete a review of the environmental impact of developing the area before its approval. If Eastview isn’t required to take these steps, it could become a slippery slope of letting other projects off the hook, he added.

“If you’re going to give this massive project a pass, you’re setting precedent for future developments,” he said. “You can’t just skip it. (County employees) have to have accountability.”

The nearby Marshland Flood District also has major reservations about Eastview’s effect on the 13 wetlands and four streams within 300 feet of the site.

Pacific Ridge’s wetland study of Eastview “in many, if not most cases, underrepresents onsite wetland and stream features,” said Ryan Barnes, a former civil engineer for King County who reviewed Eastview’s plans on behalf of Marshland, in a memo to the hearing examiner.

By downplaying existing habitats, Barnes’ memo said Pacific Ridge doesn’t have to do as much mitigation or restoration.

If construction starts and destroys these areas, which currently provide stormwater drainage and storage, downstream neighbors will pay the price, he explained, especially since the development will sit on hills.

Barnes’ analysis stated the effects of not properly addressing the environmental concerns he and Marshland found in the Eastview plans include increased runoff, more polluted water, and loss of wildlife and aquatic habitat.

“I feel like they’re just purposely assaulting the farmers. There’s 20 farms that will be affected by the construction,” said Thomas when asked why she was motivated to sign the County Council appeal. “There’s just no way that there’s not going to be flooding issues or more sediment coming down.”

Additionally, Barnes found that Eastview’s plan redirects a stream from its wetlands, altering natural hydrologic patterns and violating the county’s drainage manual.

‘Someone who does a lot of work in the county’

Beyond issues Irwin found in Eastview’s application, he also has suspicions that a county executive director, Klein, has advocated to speed up Eastview’s approval for Pacific Ridge’s benefit.

All county projects go through “a very detailed, consistent process,” which involves checking boxes before a proposal can even be submitted, McCrary said.

Once a project is submitted, reviewers from all types of disciplines look over the proposal and note areas where the application might not meet certain codes. The county gives feedback to the developer for updates and revisions.

“It’s not uncommon for a project to go through several iterations, going back and forth, to make sure it meets code compliance,” he said.

But in a November 2023 email to McCrary and Public Works Director Kelly Snyder, Klein asked if the county could schedule an approval hearing in January before Pacific Ridge had responded to PDS’s first round of comments.

“Had a good conversation with John today,” Klein wrote in the email, referring to John Mirante, the named applicant for Eastview and division vice president of land development for Pacific Ridge Homes. “We would like to get a hearing date in mid-January if possible, but end of January at the latest. Please let me know if this is doable.”

Irwin believes the email shows Klein was attempting to accelerate the approval timeline to benefit Pacific Ridge.

“He was clearly advocating for the development instead of complying with code,” Irwin said, adding that the public hearing is typically scheduled after staff recommends approval. “If a project does not comply with code, then there is no reason for a hearing to be scheduled.”

It’s not possible for one person, like Klein, to influence a project, McCrary said in April.

“There’s a lot of checks and balances along the way,” he said, “so it’s not something that you could push through and rush, and I don’t believe … there’s intent to do that.”

At the time, Snyder responded to Klein, writing, in part, “The second eastview package will be submitted on Monday by the applicant. One of the factors will be if and how the developer addressed the comments the county has provided formally in writing and what we discussed during our meetings over the past few months.”

Klein denied that he advocated for staff to take any action, saying he was just passing along a request from a customer, as he often does.

“PDS and public works are the ones that control the entire process, and I do not tell them what to do or encourage them to do a specific action,” Klein said.

He occasionally helps to facilitate a conversation between county staff and applicants, he said, such as a “mom and pop who has a shop they’re trying to build.”

“A lot of times, the issue is the applicant doesn’t know something that they were supposed to provide,” Klein said. “Then there’s an opportunity for me to provide that information back to the customer.”

But Pacific Ridge is owned by the biggest housebuilder in the country, and Klein said Mirante “is someone who does a lot of work in the county.”

Santa Clara University government ethics expert John Pelissero, said the interactions raise concerns about whether one of the county’s most powerful administrators is acting fairly and in the public interest.

“Fairness is an important ethical consideration — fairness to other developers, fairness to the public in regard to the process and also fairness in treating the qualified experts in the planning department in ways that respect what they bring,” Pelissero said.

The first approval hearing didn’t end up happening until November 2024 after the second review was completed — a full year after Klein’s email to staff.

By then, Irwin had resigned without approving the project. The engineer said he made it clear to his managers what the outstanding problems were on the application.

The department replaced him with Huey, who wrote in an email that he reviewed Irwin’s memos but believes the project complies with county and state law.

“I was the driving force saying, ‘No, this is what Eastview needs to comply,’” Irwin said. “Once I resigned, there was no one that ensured it, and no one at the county had the same level of knowledge as I did.”

At the approval hearings in November 2024, Irwin told the county hearing why he didn’t believe the development should move forward without revisions— showing diagrams of traffic analyses, citing specific code violations and noting what changes were needed to comply with county and state laws.

“Whether I have a county badge or not, everything I say below is for the health, safety, and general welfare of the public,” Irwin stated in his written testimony. “I am a public servant to my core.”

He also highlighted the email from Klein, saying it shows “clear unethical and preferential treatment.”

‘I’m all for development.’

After the County Council hearing in July, the council could disregard the appeal, partially or fully reverse Hearing Examiner Camp’s decision, or push the project back to Camp with new findings and information provided during the hearing.

If the council upholds Camp’s decision, community members can appeal the decision to the Snohomish County Superior Court within a 21-day window under the state’s Land Use Petition Act.

While Irwin is prepared to take the appeal all the way if necessary, this wasn’t what he had imagined for his relationship with the county. He had always dreamed of following the his dad’s footsteps in public service for Snohomish County. His dad worked for the county for 44 years doing road maintenance, and Irwin remembers the joy he felt when his dad brought him to work growing up.

“I thought I would spend my career with Snohomish County and retire there like my family before me,” he said, reflecting on what it had taken for him to resign. “I’m all for development — if it meets the code.”

Eliza Aronson: 425-339-3434; eliza.aronson@heraldnet.com; X: @ElizaAronson.

Eliza’s stories are supported by the Herald’s Environmental and Climate Reporting Fund.