SHORELINE – The permit hearing for a home proposed to be built in a landslide zone on Richmond Beach Drive was postponed Nov. 5 after neighbors claimed they had not received notice of the environmental review of the site.
The location where the home is proposed to be built is a steep slope in the 20200 block of Richmond Beach Drive. It is in a designated landslide hazard and too close to a nearby wetlands and stream to be built upon, according to city code. The landowner, Dennis Casper, wants special permission to build a home within the landslide area and required stream and wetland buffers, and applied for a Critical Areas Reasonable Use Permit to do so.
Shoreline Planning and Development director Tim Stewart said the city’s Critical Area Reasonable Use Permit was created to allow development of private property when critical area standards would otherwise deny it.
“The courts have held that when a city denies all reasonable use of a property, it is an inverse condemnation, or a taking of private property,” which becomes a liability for the city, Stewart said.
On Aug. 30 the city of Shoreline issued a State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) determination stating that if certain conditions were met, the development would cause no significant environmental impact. To meet those mitigating conditions, Casper would have to produce an erosion and sedimentation control plan to prevent soil from entering the nearby stream, gain permits before moving a storm drainage pipe, install siltation fencing around the wetlands area, plant native trees and shrubs on the property, and minimize landslides by constructing the home using a deep foundation system with solid pile walls.
Neighbors said they did not see the notice of the SEPA determination, and asked the Hearing Examiner to postpone the hearing so they could follow through with an appeal, said nearby resident Starla Hohbach.
Stewart says the hearing was advertised.
“We have a certificate of mailing signed affidavit that the notices were sent out, so there is a conflict between what the record says and what the parties say,” Stewart said. “The applicant, the city and the Hearing Examiner however all agreed it would be appropriate to re-advertise the hearing.”
The city’s Hearing Examiner postponed the hearing until after Jan. 15 so that the hearing could be re-advertised and notices given, which would also give residents the ability to appeal the SEPA determination. If an appeal is filed, the Hearing Examiner will merge the SEPA appeal and the permit hearing into one hearing.
Hohbach said the group of surrounding neighbors plan to appeal the SEPA determination to the city’s Hearing Examiner. They question the city having laws to protect the environment when the city allows a way for them to be broken. They also want to protect their view of the Sound and property values.
“We don’t think they’ve met the burden to prove that there will be no environmental impact,” Hohbach said – “based on the fact that this project is about multiple, major violations of the Shoreline development code.”
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