WARM BEACH – While developers’ plans to build up to 6,000 homes near Lake Goodwin have the potential for the largest effect on this rural community, neighbors say another long-planned housing project nearby should not be overlooked.
The Warm Beach Senior Community, a nonprofit enterprise of the Pacific Northwest Free Methodist Church, plans to build 100 units of senior housing at 20420 Marine Drive – just a mile from where the McNaughton Group of Edmonds is planning its large developments.
“All together, it’s worth paying attention to,” said Quentin Mitchell, who lives near Warm Beach.
Mitchell and Leon Sams, who lives next to the proposed Warm Beach development, say the cumulative effect of added traffic in the area could be too much.
“Our roads out here are substandard,” Sams said.
The Warm Beach Senior Community already operates 175 housing units for independent seniors, 81 nursing home units and 33 units for assisted living, executive director David Fairchild said. The nearby Warm Beach Christian Camps and Conference Center is also part of the Free Methodist Church and operates under a separate board, Fairchild said.
The senior community has been planning some type of expansion for 12 years, he said. The 100 units would consist of townhouses and apartments.
“We primarily serve lower income, moderate income people,” Fairchild said.
In addition to traffic, Sams said he’s concerned about the environmental effects of the project. He believes cutting down the trees behind his property could result in flooding.
“Stripping all the trees is inconsistent with all the other building they’ve done in good taste,” he said. The Christian conference center is planning to upgrade its wastewater treatment system.
Fairchild declined to discuss project details. Snohomish County is conducting an environmental review of the project, he said.
“They have concerns that are valid,” he said of Sams and other residents, adding that he believes the concern has been addressed.
Sams doesn’t believe the county’s environmental review will be thorough enough. He wants an environmental impact statement.
“We are looking very hard at the drainage implications and other environmental impacts of that project,” said Craig Ladiser, planning director for the county.
The review does not include traffic, Fairchild said. Traffic, along with septic runoff and water supply, is the most-mentioned concern of residents opposing the planned nearby development by the McNaughton Group.
The company already has proposed 640 new homes, in “clusters” surrounded by open space, in about 31/2 square miles of sparsely populated land north of Lake Goodwin. It also has requested a zoning change that could bump that number up to as high as 1,700 homes, in the form of a “rural village” that would be more densely populated but leave more open space.
And the company is considering scrapping all these plans to apply to build Snohomish County’s first “mini-city” – with its own homes, workplaces and shops – since such developments were sanctioned by the county last year.
Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.
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