EVERETT — Snohomish County Council denied an appeal on July 2 against the county hearing examiner’s decision to approve plans for Eastview Village, a 145-acre development planned off Cathcart Way near Silver Firs.
Critics say the project sidestepped necessary environmental review and will create dangerous traffic situations. During the appeal hearing, Seattle-based developer Pacific Ridge Homes, argued the appellants’ concerns weren’t backed with sufficient evidence to overthrow the examiner’s decision, which the county council echoed in its decision.
In 2022, Pacific Ridge Homes, which is owned by the country’s largest home builder company D.R. Horton, submitted plans for Eastview Village. The project plans to build 1,311 residential units — a mix of houses and apartments — plus 61,000 square feet of commercial space in unincorporated Snohomish County.
The county’s Planning and Development Services Department sent the project to Hearing Examiner Peter Camp in November 2024 for approval, with hearings held from the end of November to Dec. 30.
During the hearings, David Irwin, former lead transportation engineer for the county’s planning department, testified against the development plans, which he had been in charge of reviewing the transportation material for the massive development before he resigned in April 2024 due to ethical disputes with management.
Community members and local groups, including the Marshland Flood District and Greenleaf Housing Association, also submitted testimonies during the approval process about the project overloading roads and inadequately addressing storm water and flooding concerns.
Camp approved the project in February 2025 and again in April after a round of reconsideration appeals. After Camp’s second approval, Debbie Wetzel, a resident living near Eastview’s proposed site, organized an appeal against the decision, with 40 signatures of support representing community members, local nonprofits and Greenleaf Housing Association.
The appeal took the decision to county council, which heard testimonies from Wetzel, Irwin, and other appellants, as well as legal representatives from Pacific Ridge, on July 2.
In his testimony, Irwin detailed red flags he’d raised from his review of Eastview’s 2,875-page application. He spoke out against Pacific Ridge’s plan to build an intersection just east of Glacier Peak High School and Little Cedars Elementary School, where 11 lanes of traffic, excluding additional bike lanes, will converge. In the submitted plan, the intersection will only be governed by stop signs.
The design of the intersection will make it difficult for drivers to see over the hood of cars in multiple lanes pulling up to stop signs, increasing the risk of pedestrian collisions, he said, emphasizing the close proximity to schools.
Snohomish resident and appellant Kim Cutuli spoke about frustration with the state Department of Transportation not requiring more of developers to support needed infrastructure for developments.
“Projects like this one we’re discussing today are often justified by the promise of future infrastructure improvements, but we’ve seen what happens when these promises don’t materialize,” she said. “A huge number of new trips will absolutely spill onto Highway 9, and what follows will be more collisions, more injuries, and, yes, more fatalities. That’s not planning, that’s gambling with people’s lives.”
Pacific Ridge counsel Peter Durland said Eastview had been through over three years of review, and the hearing examiner had gone through hundreds of pages of documents before approving the project.
“While the appellant party’s record may disagree with the ultimate findings, the process in reaching the conclusion was anything but rushed,” he said.
The hearing examiner is the highest fact-finding authority in the approval process, Durland said, and for Camp’s decision to be overturned by the council, Wetzel must show there was not substantial evidence in the record to support Camp’s decision.
At the beginning of the latest hearing, Council member Nate Nehring clarified the council does not have jurisdiction over State Environmental Protection Act exemptions, meaning those issues were not deeply discussed or tied to the council’s decision.
Every council member except Strom Peterson also disclosed they had received campaign contributions from both sides of the appeal. After hearing testimonies and rebuttals from both sides and taking a 10-minute recess, the council unanimously affirmed Camp’s approval of Eastview.
“Our whole big issue was we just wanted them to send it back for further review to make sure everything was addressed,” Wetzel said on Monday, adding she and the other appellants plan to file an appeal with the county superior court. “We already knew we’d have to file in Superior Court because the county council doubles down. They have no liability. They have no skin in the game.”
The group of appellants now plan to file a Land Use Petition Act appeal in Snohomish County Superior Court. The court appeal requires a lawyer and the group hopes to raise $100,000 for its case, Joan Thomas, one of the appellant organizers, said in an email. Donations can be made at http://tiny.cc/savecathcart. For more information, email savecathcart@outlook.com.
Eliza Aronson: 425-339-3434; eliza.aronson@heraldnet.com; X: @ElizaAronson.
Eliza’s stories are supported by the Herald’s Environmental and Climate Reporting Fund.
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