Snohomish County Executive Bob Drewel has vetoed auto dealer Dwayne Lane’s controversial rezone request for about 110 acres of farmland at Island Crossing north of Marysville.
It was only the third veto of Drewel’s 12-year career as county executive.
News of the veto came late Friday as county workers were preparing to leave for the weekend. Drewel was in Seattle with family and was not available for comment. Lane also could not be reached for comment Friday evening.
Lane has been trying since the mid-1990s to move his Arlington car lot to the high-profile site next to I-5. His proposal to urbanize land at Island Crossing has generated controversy for years, in large part because the area is in the Stillaguamish River flood plain.
Drewel’s veto means the 110 acres will remain agricultural. However, the County Council could reintroduce the matter; a 4-1 vote would be needed to override Drewel’s veto.
Anti-sprawl groups and others, including the county’s Agricultural Advisory Board and the Snohomish County Farm Bureau, view the property as prime farmland and say it should remain agricultural because of the state’s Growth Management Act. The act protects farm and forest lands from urban development.
Drewel’s veto comes on the heels of a recent state decision on an earlier rezone of farmland near I-5 and Marysville.
On Monday, the Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board shot down a County Council-approved rezone that would have taken 216 acres of the MacAngus Ranch out of farming. That zoning switch was made as part of the council’s 2002 changes to its growth plan. The changes to the growth plan that Drewel vetoed on Friday were approved by the council in August.
County Councilman Dave Gossett, who cast the sole vote against Lane’s proposal last month, said there were strong reasons to reject it.
Although Lane said he would mitigate flood impacts in his development, and Gossett said he believed Lane would make good on his promises, the councilman said he wasn’t sure that others who own property in the rezone area would make similar efforts.
In light of the recent decision on the MacAngus Ranch rezone, counties must be careful when they try to take land out of farming, Gossett said.
"It re-emphasizes why you’ve really got to have strong reasons for doing an agriculture de-designation," Gossett said.
Drewel also vetoed two other changes to the county’s 20-year plan for guiding growth — a rezone of 4.5 acres in the Maltby area from rural residential zoning to heavy industrial, and a rezone of 6.5 acres near Clearview from rural residential zoning to rural commercial.
He also did not sign an ordinance that would remove development restrictions on 17 acres of land in the Lake Stevens urban growth area. That ordinance, since it was not vetoed outright, will take effect in 10 days.
Earlier Friday, near the close of his 12th and final budget speech to county employees, Drewel highlighted development as an issue that he said would continue to vex the county in the years ahead.
"How will we protect our farms, our forests and our streams?" Drewel asked. "How will we pay for the roads, parks, the schools and other infrastructure that will make it possible?"
Reporter Brian Kelly: 425-339-3422 or kelly@heraldnet.com.
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