GRANITE FALLS — Plans to build an off-road motorcycle racetrack along the Mountain Loop Highway may have fallen through for good following a judge’s ruling last month.
The decision overturns approvals that would have allowed the project to take shape on forestland northeast of Granite Falls. It halted a decade-long quest by motocross riders to build a track in Snohomish County, but handed a victory to neighbors and environmental groups who opposed it.
The track’s main backer said he’s giving up, even though the court ruling can be appealed.
“There’s not going to be a track,” Gary Strode said. “I don’t know if everybody even knows yet. I’m still trying to digest it myself.”
A company that Strode co-owns, MXGP of Kirkland, obtained permission from the county last year to build a complex of tracks on a portion of 437 acres of land belonging to Bascom Pacific of Portland, Oregon, that sits between two quarries.
Had plans gone ahead, construction would have been phased in over 15 years. Most of the land would have remained forest.
In the end, the project’s fate hinged on zoning, rather than the environmental or quality-of-life issues opponents had raised. Concerns included noise from motorcycle engines, groundwater contamination from oil spills, water quality in nearby Canyon Creek, increased highway traffic and the ability of rural firefighters to respond to fires and injuries.
On Aug. 25, King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North vacated earlier approvals the track received from the County Council and the hearing examiner. In his bench ruling, North said the county improperly rezoned the property where the track was to be built. The county, he said, had failed to demonstrate any changed circumstances in the neighborhood to justify the new zoning. That rendered the plans invalid.
“I am happy that the judge confirmed what we have been saying all along, that the rezone of this property from its forestry zoning designation was illegal and a nonforestry use, such as a motocross racetrack facility, cannot be located there,” neighbor Ginger Amundson said.
Amundson filed the court challenge in conjunction with developer Marty Robinett and the nonprofit Mountain Loop Conservancy.
“Obviously we’re happy with the ruling,” said Paul Sheppard, the Conservancy’s president. “The ruling … was not on motocross, it was on zoning. Those laws are there to protect all of us, whether you’re a landowner or a visitor or a business owner. All of those people depend on the zoning laws being upheld.”
The North Cascades Conservation Council and the Pilchuck Audubon Society also opposed the track at earlier stages in the approval process.
Sheppard said track opponents were prepared to challenge the environmental impacts and other aspects of the project in court, but there was no need.
That leaves Strode and his partners walking away from 10-plus years and more than a million dollars of investment. He said he’s not considering any alternative location.
The ordeal started in 2005, when county code officers forced Strode to close a track he was operating without permits near the Skykomish River south of Monroe. Though county officials wouldn’t let Strode run a track on the Monroe property, they allowed a monster truck rally to take place there a few years later.
Soon after the Monroe track closed, Stode and his partners tried to start a new venture in Maltby. That failed because of neighborhood opposition and zoning restrictions.
In 2006, the County Council agreed to open up some commercial forestland for motocross. Organizers would have to obtain permits, meet noise standards — and rezone the land.
A year later, MXGP applied to build the track. The approval process stretched on another seven years as consultants proposed ways to dampen motorcycle noise and protect wildlife habitat. Planners reviewed the ideas and suggested changes.
In 2013, Strode said the county’s restrictions had forced him to scale back plans to what amounted to a mom-and-pop operation.
This past December, county hearing examiner pro tem Phil Olbrechts approved the track. The examiner, however, imposed 14 pages of special conditions about noise, water runoff, light pollution, fire dangers and hours of operation.
The County Council in March upheld the examiner’s decision.
Snohomish County attorneys argued before North in support of the council’s ruling. They have not yet decided whether to appeal.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.
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