Hearing for proposed Marysville development attracts crowd

MARYSVILLE — In a marathon hearing on Thursday, the Marysville hearing examiner, Kevin McDonald, heard three hours of arguments from lawyers, expert witnesses and neighbors concerning a proposed 59-home development in the city.

The hearing examiner — who renders decisions on project applications and land-use decisions — will decide whether to uphold or reject a previous city decision that found there would not be a significant impact on the environment. McDonald will consider that appeal, and decide if the project can move forward with preliminary approval, within the next 21 days.

More than 150 homes exist in the neighborhood where the development would be built, bordered by Quilceda Creek to the east and north, with I-5 to the west. The neighborhood has only one entrance, through 36th Avenue Northeast and 88th Street Northeast. The development would construct 59 homes, along with two parks and a pickleball court.

In November, the city found the development would not have a significant impact on the environment. Soon after, neighbors formed an LLC, the 35th Avenue Community Action Group, and hired a lawyer to appeal the city’s findings. City staff issued two recommendations on Jan. 6, requesting that the hearing examiner, would uphold the community development department’s original determination and approve the development.

A number of engineers who conducted studies for the developers spoke to concerns raised by locals. Neighbors, on the other hand, spoke against the development for over an hour. Most cited concerns over safety and traffic in the area.

“We have one way out, one way in, and it would be nice to have a second entrance,” said Loretta Edson, who spoke at the hearing. “I’m not opposed to development, but it needs to be smart, sustainable development.”

Building another road out of the neighborhood, likely a bridge over Quilceda Creek, could cost over $30 million, Marysville’s engineering services director Jeff Laycock previously said in an email. That cost is more than the city’s entire transportation capital budget for the next two years.

Hours before the hearing began Thursday, the 35th Community Action Group filed a response to the traffic impact analysis the developers filed in August. In the response, a traffic engineer, Gary Norris, said the original analysis used the wrong process for determining traffic data — an analytic tool known as Synchro — and didn’t take into account train traffic or new roundabouts set to be constructed by 2027. Norris wrote that an additional traffic impact study should be completed to address those concerns.

“This process is not adequate to evaluate this to evaluate this corridor in terms of level of service,” he said Thursday. “Analysts should have sought out other analysis techniques so that they could understand the queuing that was going on.”

Synchro is a common software frequently used for traffic analysis, according to the Washington Department of Transportation. A third party engineer, Kassi Leingang, conducted additional studies of the traffic for the developers using another process known as SimTraffic, taking into account the new roundabouts.

Leingang’s study, she testified Thursday, found traffic would be significantly reduced following construction of the roundabouts. Following construction of the proposed development, it also found that queues would be lengthened by only one vehicle or less on average.

Marysville firefighters and police officers also testified that the development would not affect their ability to respond to emergencies.

The neighbors’ group did not provide evidence during the hearing to support its claims that groundwater could be contaminated. During testimony Thursday, multiple hydrogeologists said the stormwater management designs provided by the developers would prevent contamination.

“The stormwater management design was not created in a vacuum,” said hydrogeologist Mike Arnold. “The Department of Ecology has signed off on these because they work, and I know from experience that Ecology is not interested in approving designs that will lead to the degradation of groundwater quality.”

Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.