HomeMy WebLinkAbout65H_2024-0822 AramburuAugust 22, 2024
Cristina Haworth, AICP
SCJ Alliance
Senior Project Manager
8730 Tallon Lane NE, Suite 200
Lacey, WA 98516
Delivered to Email: cristina.haworth@scjalliance.com
Re: Pleasant Harbor Master Planned Resort: Preliminary Plat Application
Cristina:
As you are aware, my client The Brinnon Group has been following and commenting on
the proposed Pleasant Harbor Master Planned Resort (“PHMPR”) for many years.
Indeed, my client filed litigation in 2017 challenging the Development Agreement. On
March 28, 2019, the Court held the Development Agreement was contrary to law by
“failing to include a community center” as required by county ordinances and because
Phase I of the project failed to include necessary required resort amenities. The Court
decision required changes in the Development Agreement that were later adopted by
the Commissioners.
The PHMPR is a large, complex development that is subject to mandatory features
required by the GMA for master planned development, as included in the 2019
Amended Development Agreement.
Recently, the developer has filed an application for a preliminary plat for the proposal.
Even before a comment period was noticed for this application, The Brinnon Group filed
comments on the plat proposal on February 2, 2024. You responded to our letter on
April 16, 2024. A Notice of the application announcing a comment period was filed on
May 1, 2024. The Brinnon Group filed detailed comments on May 21, 2024, addressing
a number of code requirements and concerns regarding this project.
We were pleased that the County, through you, sent separate technical and civil review
comments to the applicant, both dated July 3, 2024. These comments were detailed
and dealt with a variety of important subjects. For example:
Exhibit 65H
August 22, 2024
Page 2
• The technical review comments required the Applicant to submit plans for
intersection improvements at Black Point Road and Highway 101 (Paragraph 44,
Civil Review Comments), noting this improvement was a condition of the
Development Agreement between the County and the Developer.
• Paragraph 32 of the technical review comments required the applicant to submit
“an updated transportation impact analysis.”
• A more basic request for information included plans for wells and the project’s
water distribution systems (Paragraph 56, Civil Review Comments).
• Similarly, your Civil Technical comments show that proposed road widths are
only 10 feet, when fire protection standards require 12 feet plus shoulders (Civil
Review Comments, p. 6, Paragraph 38).
• As to residential use requirements under the Jefferson County Code, Paragraph
5 of the Technical Review comments addresses the requirement to have 65% of
units be short-term rentals.
Many of the topics in your review letters were addressed by the Brinnon Group in its
several comment letters. We appreciate that you have included those important
requirements in your response to the applicant’s latest proposal.
The Jefferson County Code at 18.40.110, entitled “Determination of complete
application – Additional information and project revision,” identifies clear procedures for
replies to County requests for additional information such as those found in the July 3,
2024 civil and technical review comments. The applicant “shall have 90 calendar days
to respond to a determination that . . . additional information is required” or to request
additional time. As you are aware from your extensive experience, the issuance of
review letters by local government, and review of the responses, is the foundation of
orderly review of local land use permit applications such as preliminary plats, providing
documentation of issues and their potential resolution.
Given this background, we were surprised to learn that the applicant requested
reconsideration of the two technical review letters in their entirety without providing any
responses to the sixteen pages of comment and their 86 separate paragraphs. Now we
learn that the reconsideration request was not in writing, but was made verbally,
apparently at a private meeting with the applicant, thus both the meeting and
the applicant’s review request were undocumented and not noticed to the public.
Apparently, the applicant’s verbal request for reconsideration has been granted by you
and applies to all issues raised in the review correspondence.
This process is completely at odds with orderly review processes and also with the
specific terms of the Jefferson County Code. The undocumented request and grant of
reconsideration of important project requirements raises questions of special treatment
to this applicant. Our courts have held that:
Exhibit 65H
August 22, 2024
Page 3
The acts of administering a zoning ordinance do not go back to the questions of
policy and discretion which were settled at the time of the adoption of the
ordinance. Administrative authorities are properly concerned with questions of
compliance with the ordinance, not with its wisdom.
State ex rel. Ogden v. Bellevue, 45 Wn.2d 492, 495, 275 P.2d 899 (1954). Ogden was
cited in Eastlake Com. Coun. v Roanoke Assoc, 82 Wn 2d 475, 482 (1973) for the
following rule:
This rule is of equal force in the administration of a building code. To permit
another course of administrative behavior, thereby inviting discretion, may well
result in violations of the equal protection of the laws. The code is positive in its
requirements and contains no exceptional procedures like those employed here;
hence, no city officer was authorized to permit its violation. The duty of those
empowered to enforce the codes and ordinances of the city is to insure
compliance therewith and not to devise anonymous procedures available to the
citizenry in an arbitrary and uncertain fashion.
The undocumented and unsupported request for reconsideration of the carefully
prepared civil and technical review comments, and your grant of that request, is
contrary to the plain Jefferson County Code requirements. Devising “anonymous
procedures” to avoid code requirements for a major development project is not
permissible, especially for a project of this magnitude.
Based on the foregoing, we urge you to rescind the grant of any verbal or other request
for reconsideration of your review comments, to insist on clear answers to the content
of the review letters and to promptly make such information available to the public.
Thank you for your consideration of our request. If you have any questions, please let
me know.
J. Richard Aramburu
JRA:cc
cc: The Brinnon Group
Exhibit 65H