Rural house clusters opposed

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, October 26, 2006

EVERETT – Seeing big houses shoehorned onto tiny lots in rural Snohomish County has galvanized a group to demand repeal of rules that allow these clusters of housing.

The group delivered a petition with 624 signatures to the County Council this week urging immediate action to protect the county’s rural character.

“We don’t want to live in subdivisions, so please don’t bring the subdivisions out to us,” said Deborah Biebel-Tinius of Snohomish. “It might have started out as a good idea, but it’s ruining Snohomish County and needs to be repealed immediately.”

The opposition group, People Opposed to Rural Cluster Housing, began collecting signatures last spring, and posted signs and launched a Web site promoting the group.

County zoning rules typically allow one house per five acres in rural areas.

Since 1993, county policies have also encouraged clusters of housing in rural areas because it forces builders to set aside a percentage of open space. By doing so, builders win the right to build a few more houses than would otherwise be allowed.

Some developers built houses on lots smaller than a half-acre while giving up open space.

“Cluster development is a misused and abused policy,” said Catherine Cloud of Stanwood. “Their proliferation defies the Growth Management Act by permitting high-density housing outside of the urban growth area.”

Officials said Wednesday that they were interested in evaluating the effects of the county’s ordinance allowing clusters of housing in rural areas.

“I share a lot of their concerns,” County Councilman Dave Somers said. “Because of the ordinance, we’re getting higher density development near wetlands. McMansions are crammed around sensitive areas.”

Developers applied to build more than 2,100 houses as part of cluster projects on 6,100 rural acres from December 1996 through 2005. About one-third of them were in 2005.

More than 3,700 acres of open space was set aside for protection on those projects. The average open space of each property was 60 percent, but ranged project to project between 45 percent and 82 percent.

As a result, instead of a ratio of one house per five acres, developments have averaged one house per 2.8 acres.

This amounts to urban sprawl, said Maxine Tuerk, co-sponsor of People Opposed to Rural Cluster Housing.

Clustering houses preserves trees and open space, said Mike Pattison of the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish counties.

“They’re an important development tool,” he said.

His group opposes any effort to repeal the rules. “We’ll fight this one bitterly,” he said.

County Councilmen John Koster and Somers said they suspect that some land set aside by builders was unusable.

“I’m not necessarily in favor of repealing” the county ordinance, Koster said. “I think there’s some tweaks we might make.”

About 51,000 people are expected to move into rural areas in the next 20 years, totaling nearly 20 percent of the county’s population growth, according to county plans.

Elsie Sorgenfrei brought hand-drawn posters for the County Council of her family’s original cluster housing dating back to the 1800s.

“Here’s the large barn, chicken coop, pig pen, tractor shed and farmhouse,” she said, and the modern version is “rural clutter.”

The degree of concern about cluster housing comes as a surprise, county Planning and Development Services Director Craig Ladiser said.

“We will look at it,” Ladiser said. “Is it really about density or the appearance of them? Is it about rural character or about number of units or is it both?”

County policies require officials to monitor rural developments to make sure patterns of urban development don’t emerge, with reports due annually.

Snohomish County was sued in 1995 over its growth plans. The county later changed its policies to restrict rural housing to one house per five acres except when cluster developments are built.

The county’s plan was deemed sufficient, and its “saving grace” was a pledge to monitor the individual effects of cluster housing in rural areas, the Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board held in 1997.

However, the bigger picture must be watched, the board said.

“It is at this countywide level that measures must be taken to protect the rural area against the inadvertent creation of a pattern of low-density sprawl,” the board held.

Reporter Jeff Switzer: 425-339-3452 or jswitzer@heraldnet.com.