COUPEVILLE – A developer’s plans to build two 10,000-square-foot hotels on the north end of Camano Island were rebuked Tuesday by Island County’s hearing examiner, Michael Bobbink.
Bobbink agreed with an appeal filed in March by Camano Action for a Rural Environment that overnight lodging is not a use that is allowed in the county’s rural village zone.
David Platter, a Camano Island developer, proposed to build the two hotels on 5.4 acres on Highway 532 south of Good Road as part of a larger commercial development that would include a restaurant, office and retail space, and a soccer field.
The environmental group opposed the plan for a number of reasons, including the zoning and concerns about groundwater.
In January, Platter asked Phil Bakke, the county’s planning director, for a zoning code interpretation about whether hotels could be built there. Bakke ruled in February that they could. That sparked the environmental group’s appeal.
The hearing examiner focused his decision on the zoning issue. He based his ruling on a 1998 decision by county commissioners that overnight lodging should not be allowed in a rural village zone, except for one project near Cornet Bay on Whidbey Island.
“In spite of requests from other citizens, the board did not allow overnight lodging in other areas zoned rural village,” Bobbink ruled.
The hearing examiner’s ruling said that county code does give the planning director interpretive authority, but not if the commissioners already have made their own interpretation.
For the project to proceed, it would require a zoning amendment by the commissioners, Bobbink ruled.
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