Our rural areas are at great risk from urban growth area expansions, ill-planned growth, rural cluster subdivisions and fully contained communities (FCCs). Three Snohomish County Council members took a stand recently for better managed growth. They were shot down.
In a grand attempt to address the threat of FCCs, County Council Chairman Dave Somers introduced an emergency ordinance to temporarily halt an FCC application. FCC code, adopted by a past pro-development County Council, allows new cities to spring up on thousands of acres of rural land. This is sprawl at its finest, adding to the headaches we already face with transportation, pollution, mismanaged growth and increased taxes.
Emergency ordinances require at least four votes. Council member Dave Gossett was on vacation at the time of the vote, though he’s on record as supporting FCCs and was on the council that created the code. Council member John Koster was the fourth vote needed for the moratorium, and it was his vote that caused the ordinance to fail.
In our view, he made the wrong choice. His defense is that an emergency does not exist: an “FCC lives or dies by this council,” he said. He also said he received his copy of the emergency ordinance at the last minute, and didn’t see it coming until the day before the vote. “Political grandstanding” is what he called the measure.
But to rural and urban folks alike, this is an emergency because the potential for an FCC still exists. And Mr. Koster did see this coming: On behalf of our communities, we personally asked him weeks before the vote to support the measure. It appears he is the one grandstanding while he leaves his rural constituency at risk.
So the emergency ordinance failed, and we have to look for a different measure of relief. And time is of the essence, both for us as a community and for the forces that want to level acres of forests to put up brand new, self-glorifying cities. The county planning department is already having pre-application meetings with the developers of Falcon Ridge, the FCC proposed for Lake Roesiger. We have been told that an FCC application could be vested in as early as four months.
Mr. Koster disagrees with the Planning Department’s interpretation on the vesting issue, which is truly troublesome. If there is no consensus on the elements of the code between planning staff and council, then this makes the emergency even more pressing.
Keep in mind what it means if Mr. Koster is wrong, and Falcon Ridge becomes a vested application. For 20 years or so, bulldozers will be tearing out chunks of what is now 3,000 acres of commercial forest land, forever changing the character of rural Lake Roesiger, adding at least 60,000 car trips per day to our rural roads, and threatening the water quality of the lake.
With so much at stake, let’s just deal with what we do know for fact.
Fact One: The County Council, during the comprehensive plan update, tacked onto its projected population increase of 300,000 an extra 15,000 people just for an FCC. It did this after already setting its target population goal on the high end from within a range of choices. If we don’t have an FCC, where will those 15,000 people go? When the first 300,000 more people move here, we can talk about where 15,000 more people should live.
Fact Two: The code is broad and confusing and obviously open to interpretation. The Planning Department says one thing about when vesting occurs, and the council’s legal adviser says another. If they don’t know, how do we? Not knowing gives the developers the full advantage. As to Mr. Koster’s idea that an FCC lives or dies by the council’s decision, it is risky thinking. If a developer meets the code, jumps through all the hoops and makes it to the council doorstep with a complete application, they have no grounds on which to deny. Doing so risks legal appeals.
Fact Three: While there was a stakeholder committee to develop the policies for an FCC, they were not asked to help develop the codes. In fact, the FCC process, described by Koster as “exhaustive” and inclusive of the public, stopped at the door. That’s where the developers walked in. The attorney for the proponent of the Lake Roesiger FCC actually wrote up code for consideration, and the FCC code that now exists looks frighteningly similar to that version. Forgive us if we don’t bother to feign surprise.
The facts speak for themselves. We needed that moratorium, and we didn’t get it. It’s not too late for this County Council to work together and do the right thing for all the rural communities at risk. We’re counting on it.
Ellen Hiatt Watson is founder and chair of 7-Lakes, formed to educate the public about land use processes and to preserve the rural areas of Snohomish County. Cindy Howard is president of the Lake Roesiger Property Association and has been a resident on the east side of Lake Roesiger since 1982.
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