WOODWAY — The company trying to build more than 3,000 condos along the Puget Sound waterfront is appealing the Snohomish County hearing examiner’s decision to deny the project.
The County Council has scheduled an Oct. 3 hearing to consider the appeal from BSRE Point Wells. The company also is pressing the same arguments through a land-use petition in Snohomish County Superior Court.
By number of housing units, Point Wells was the largest residential development under consideration in unincorporated Snohomish County.
In June, hearing examiner Peter Camp declined to extend the deadline for completing the project’s permit application, which expired the next day. The project had been pending since 2011 and received three earlier extensions.
Camp identified several shortcomings with the plans to remake the 60-acre industrial site into a mixed-use development. Camp said the developer had failed to demonstrate access to high-capacity transit and could not justify exceeding a height limit of 90 feet. That limited almost half of the 46 proposed buildings, with the tallest reaching 180 feet, or 17 stories.
The examiner also said the Point Wells proposal placed buildings too close to marine waters, needed more geological hazard studies and transitioned too abruptly to nearby residential areas.
After the decision, county land-use planners stopped processing the permit applications.
In its appeal, BSRE is asking for a deadline extension to finish work on the permits. The company reports spending about $10 million so far to move its project through the land-use process, including $1 million to address questions that county planners raised last year. The foreign limited partnership is part of a real estate and energy conglomerate with business in the United States, Europe and Israel.
The County Council hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Oct. 3 in downtown Everett.
BSRE’s appeal in Superior Court was filed Aug. 24.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@herald net.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.
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