A group of Snoqualmie citizens are opposing a hotel development project on the corner of SE Center Street and the Snoqualmie Parkway. They protested the project Monday, after discovering the city did not meet its own requirements for notifying residents — those within a 500-foot radius of the project — that a public hearing was scheduled.

Snoqualmie City Attorney Bob Sterbank said a condominium complex on Fairway Avenue was missed during the mailing process because of an error made when generating the list of addresses to send notifications to. The notifications announced a March 13 public hearing on amendments to the developer agreement.

Sterbank said the city doesn’t know the exact cause of why the condominium complex was missed, but the most probable reason is a mistake in entering data on the 500-foot radius into the city’s Geographic Information System (GIS) to get the addresses of residents. The list was most likely generated from one point on the property in the GIS, instead of using the property as a whole, Sterbank said.

The code requiring the city to notify property owners within 500 feet is a city code, not county or state, and there isn’t anything that requires the city to move backward in the process or undo the council’s decision, Sterbank explained.

“In this case the city council approved the minor changes to the mixed use final plan and approved the development agreement, and it has been signed and recorded,” he said.

Snoqualmie Mayor Matt Larson met with the condominium complex’s homeowners association board on Tuesday, to discuss the development and answer questions. He also said the city will discuss revising the code to require mail to individual units, rather than just the owner of properties. Currently, in the case of a condominium, only the owner would have received the notification.

“We are not going out of our way to deceive the public, it was just an unfortunate error I am not happy with… This is not the way we operate, these are not our values.” Larson said.