EVERETT — Critics of a large mixed-use development project in unincorporated Snohomish County filed a land use petition in the Skagit County Superior Court on Monday.
Petitioners against the 144.88-acre Eastview Village project included the nonprofit SaveBothell and its sister branch SaveCathcart, the Greenleaf HOA and 21 individuals. The development is slated to be built in the unincorporated Silver Firs area by Seattle-based developer Pacific Ridge Homes.
Land use petition appeals are allowed to be filed in the county which a land use is being challenged or in a neighboring county. The appeal opposes Snohomish County’s approval of Eastview Village, claiming the project was wrongly exempted from the state’s environmental policy act, did not fulfill complete and accurate transportation reviews and would cause safety hazards to nearby school children and residents.
“We are frustrated that the County has chosen to ignore our concerns and we hope that a judge will review the facts and uphold relevant state and local laws in an unbiased manner,” Kathy Putt, petitioner and president of Greenleaf HOA , wrote in an email on Wednesday. “Our goal is not to stop the project, but to mitigate the significant impacts that it will have on our community.”
Snohomish County councilmember Megan Dunn declined to comment on the matter because the council could act as a quasi-judicial body for the matter if an appeal was later filed in Snohomish County, she said. Pacific Ridge Homes also declined to comment.
During the appeal hearing to Snohomish County Council in July, Pacific Ridge counsel Peter Durland said Eastview had been through over three years of review, and the hearing examiner had gone through hundreds of pages of documents before approving the project.
“While the appellant party’s record may disagree with the ultimate findings, the process in reaching the conclusion was anything but rushed,” he said on July 2.
In November 2022, 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.
During the project’s approval hearings in winter 2024, former county transportation engineer David Irwin, who had been in charge of making sure Eastview and other development projects across the county met necessary codes, testified about the red flags he noticed while working on the application.
He resigned in April 2024 before the project was sent for approval, but said he believed the project didn’t meet county and state laws during his testimony to Hearing Examiner Peter Camp.
Other testimony included comments from the Marshland Flood District, which had major reservations about Eastview’s effect on the 13 wetlands and four streams within 300 feet of the site. Greenleaf HOA and numerous neighbors of the proposed site testified about how Eastview could negatively impact the area, overloading unsupported roads and infrastructure.
Camp approved the project in February and again in April after a round of reconsideration appeals. After Camp’s second approval, Debbie Wetzel, a resident living near Eastview’s proposed site, organized an appeal to the Snohomish County Council.
At a July 2 hearing, the county council denied the appeal, leading petitioners to raise funds for an attorney to support a land use appeal.
“I was very disappointed in the county council,” Wetzel said in an interview on Thursday. “They’re supposed to be stepping up for us, not for the developer.”
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.
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