City not done fighting upzone

Published 1:50 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

NORTH BEND – Claiming that a recent decision by the Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board sets a dangerous precedent, the city of North Bend has petitioned the King County Superior Court to review how the public was informed of zoning changes to land near the city as a result of updating the 2000 King County comprehensive plan.

The North Bend City Council agreed last week by a 3-2 vote to spend up to $15,000 on the appeal. The petition calls for two amendments to the comprehensive plan to be invalidated and sent back to the Metropolitan King County Council.

“The primary factor [in filing the petition] is a belief that King County never provided notice or an opportunity to be heard to anyone,” said City Attorney Michael Kenyon of the amendments.

Amendments to the comprehensive plan were passed by the County Council in February. Among them were two affecting about 80 acres along Interstate 90 owned by Robert Yerkes, and 164 acres near the Forster Woods subdivision owned by Richard and Rosanne Zemp.

Zoned as forestry, the Zemps’ 164 acres were reclassified as RA-10, or one house every 10 acres. Yerkes’ property, which had been zoned at RA-10, was changed to RA-5, or one house every five acres.

This spring, the City Council agreed to appeal the amendments to the county comprehensive plan, setting a spending limit of $30,000. Joined in the city’s appeal were the Forster Woods Homeowners’ Association and the Friends and Neighbors of Forster Woods.

The Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board took up the appeal and issued a decision Nov. 6. It let stand the zoning change for the Zemps’ property, but it overruled the upzoning of Yerkes’ land, saying such a move went against the county and state land-use policies.

Richard Zemp said it is unfortunate that the city plans to spend more money to fight the amendments.

“If they appeal, I just feel sorry for the taxpayers. It seems like a lot of waste of money,” he said.

The hearings board’s decision also addressed arguments that the public wasn’t properly notified or given a chance to comment on the two amendments. It stated the county did provide an adequate comment period.

“The board notes that the county’s public participation program for the 2000 comprehensive plan amendment process lasted almost a year. The public was offered many ways to comment, and the record reveals a great deal of evidence of direct communications between council members, staff and the public,” the hearings board wrote.

In its appeal of the hearings board decision, the city said while that may be true as a whole for the entire amendment process, it does not apply to the Yerkes and Zemp amendments, known as map amendments 23 and 24, respectively.

“North Bend has no argument that the county’s public participation process for the rest of its comprehensive plan amendments was adequate, and even admirable, but ‘averaging’ the public participation across the entire amendment process neither serves the public interest nor satisfies the [Growth Management Act],” the petition states.

“The county was required to give the public an opportunity to ‘review and comment’ on all comprehensive plan amendments, not just some of the amendments. … As it stands, the growth board’s ruling will allow governments to pass stealth amendments under the shield of an otherwise adequate amendment process.”

Councilwoman Elaine Webber, who voted to approve the city’s petition, said she was troubled by the hearings board’s reasoning.

“We just are baffled as to how they can see what happened as correct,” she said. “It’s inconsistent with the way everything else was accomplished.”

The amendments were first introduced in August 2000 at a meeting of the County Council’s Growth Management and Unincorporated Areas Committee. But a month later, on Sept. 16, 2000, they were withdrawn by their sponsors, former Councilman Chris Vance and current council members Kent Pullen and Rob McKenna.

The committee then sent the remaining amendments back to the County Council, which held its first public hearing on the 2000 comprehensive plan on Nov. 13, 2000. A legal notice said the council would consider 22 amendments and “may consider four additional land-use and/or zoning map amendments,” with amendments 23 and 24 apparently among those.

The petition then states that when the County Council held a second public hearing on Feb. 5, the two amendments were not on the agenda or included in the notice of the hearing. But they were adopted by the council, whose members on Feb. 20 passed the comprehensive plan ordinance.

“In enacting map amendments 23 and 24, King County failed to satisfy this statutory mandate because the public was never adequately informed about the County Council’s single public hearing on the map amendments, and the only opportunity for public comment on the amendments came after they had been formally withdrawn from consideration by the very committee before which they had been introduced,” the petition states.

“I don’t know how the average Valley citizen would have known about those amendments being before the County Council based on the notice that was published. I would say, in fact, the average Valley citizen would not have known about them,” Kenyon said.

District 12 Councilman David Irons said the city did know about the amendments, and the county “dotted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s” for alerting the public of the approximately 250 amendments the council considered.

He added that even though the Zemp and Yerkes amendments were withdrawn, they were never completely discarded, saying that wouldn’t happen unless the entire comprehensive plan ordinance failed. The amendments were also included in an environmental impact statement the county produced for all of the amendments.

“They [the city] were told at the time they were withdrawn that they were still active amendments and they could be brought back,” Irons said.

“All the amendments are kept alive and notified [to the public] all the way up to the very end.”

In regards to the Yerkes amendment, he also questioned why North Bend would petition the Superior Court to review a decision it had won.

“When you’ve won, what’s to be gained?” he asked.

In answer to that question, Kenyon said, “We are not appealing the entire growth board decision … We are appealing solely the issue of King County’s wholly flawed public notice and participation process.”

The County Council has until Feb. 6 to change the zoning of Yerkes’ land back to RA-10 (see sidebar on page A1).

You can reach Barry Rochford at (425) 888-2311, or e-mail him at barry.rochford

@valleyrecord.com.