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Is The Process Skewed?
by GeneMetrick
Debate over the proposed Chuckanut Ridge Planned Development hasexpanded the scrutiny of the project's possible community andenvironmental impacts to also include criticisms of the impactassessment process itself and the city's planning reviewmechanism.
"If there's anything good about (the Chuckanut debate), it is thatit comes now, as an indication of the challenges we are facing," saidChris Spens, senior planner at the city's Department of Planning andCommunity Development. "Chuckanut Ridge may force us as a communityto evaluate possible solutions to the big-picture questions ofunlimited growth."
The Chuckanut Ridge Development is a plan by the MadronaDevelopment Corporation to build 1,464 multi-family housing unitsover a period of 15-20 years on 101 acres of second-growth forest andwetlands southeast of Fairhaven between Chuckanut Drive and theInterurban Trail.
The development was first proposed in 1991, and triggered thecreation of a community organization called Interurban Neighbors,which is working to stop or at least scale back the project.
Under the city's planned residential development process, theMadrona Corporation was required to submit a draft environmentalimpact statement to the planning department, which then issued theDEIS to the public. A 50-day written comment period on the DEISproduced 429 letters against the project and only six in favor of it,according to Spens. At an April 16 public hearing, hundreds ofcommunity residents voiced their opposition to the plan.
"We have tried to be responsive and responsible to the localcommunity," said Wayne Schwandt, president of Madrona. "From ourpoint of view, any objective analysis of our project against cityrules and regulations will have to find it bedded in citypolicy."
"The process does not allow for any meaningful review orindependent analysis," said John Servais, a long-time communityactivist and opponent of the project. "The (developers) are the oneswho pay the consultants to access the impacts."
Servais said that can result in impact assessments that arewritten only to reflect the standards that are required for aproject's approval.
John Ruth, a Huxley graduate, assisted Huxley professor GilPeterson in preparing the 1980 Bellingham Comprehensive Plan.
"The 1980 Comprehensive Plan sought to allow a great deal offlexibility for the city," he said. "But it's become a reactionaryprocess. The (planning department) doesn't design and implementcommunity plans as much as it simply reacts to private interest'sdevelopment proposals and, theoretically at least, attempts toincorporate them ."
"The EIS process was envisioned as necessary to create a papertrail to hold these projects up to public scrutiny," he said.Instead, it often can enable developers to hire consultants to designDEIS statements "rigged to make a project look good."
Ruth said a more sophisticated approach to planning is needed andpossible. Instead of hiring consultants to assess each project, adata base could be established that would contain information onenvironmental, community and infrastructure characteristics for theentire area. As new projects are proposed, they could be measuredagainst this information.
"Without a context, it's just random bits of data," he said. "ADEIS looks good on paper ... but it is never integrated into alarger, central repository of knowledge. The total economic costs andthe collective impacts of [these types of] developments arenever determined."
Often, no "paper trail" can be found, especially for the zoningchanges made in the late 1970s and early '80s, before most of thecurrent enviromental protection and growth management regulations.The property for the proposed Chuckanut Ridge project was rezonedfrom suburban/rural to residential-multiple on August 11, 1980 butthere is no record of any reasons for the change in the transcriptsof Council meetings.
Spens said the lack of any record about the change in either theCouncil meetings or planning commission hearings has forced him torely only on participants' recollections and third-partyinformation.
"It's a mystery at best,S he said. RThe [Chuckanut zoningchange] was part of a number of last-minute changes to thecity-wide plan as a whole that were adopted with little or no publicdiscussion."
RA lot of things happened behind closed doors at the Councilduring the adoption of the 1980 Comprehensive Plan," said Ruth. "Somemajor zoning changes seem to have been made without anyone knowingwho wanted them or why they came about."
Schwandt wrote in the Bellingham Herald, "the (Chuckanut Ridge)property was zoned residential multiple by the city in 1980 beforethe current owners purchased the property."
This statement is part of Madrona's long-held position that itdeveloped the plan in response to growth goals outlined in the city'scomprehensive plan.
But according to the Whatcom County Assessor's Office, the currentowners purchased the Chuckanut Ridge property in October 1979 andJanuary 1980, well before the land was re-zoned in August 1980.
When asked about this seeming discrepancy, Schwandt stood by hisstatement, saying the property was purchased after plans to rezone itwere first considered and the development wasnUt proposed until manyyears later.
Schwandt said that the ownership of the land is irrelevant to theproject.
The three owners of the property are named as officers of theMadrona Corporation. The 50 percent owner of the land is listed asthe chairman of Madrona's board of directors.
Questions surrounding the ownership of Madrona were raised whenthe project was first proposed in 1991, and the reluctance of thecorporation to address them produced a great deal of public suspiciontoward the project.
Spens said these owners have been unwilling to enter into directcommunication with the planning department, and that has beenfrustrating for him in trying to determine the background and intentof the land-use changes.
Spens said the planning department is reviewing the writtencomments and public testimony. The final EIS will then be presentedto the city for review and final acceptance.
If the Planning Commission approves the final EIS, the planningdepartment will draft a development contract, which Spens said he hasRevery expectationS will be appealed to the City Council.
Schwandt said he expects Madrona to receive the developmentcontract for the project.
"We're very confident that what we've put forward is what thecommunity wants," he said. "Any mitigations that the city can placeon us, we (can) agree to; but that does not include a reduction indensity."
That will probably set the stage for future conflict over theproject. Spens said that if the city were to approve a high-unitdevelopment, the physical and logistical requirements for such aproject would be incalculable.
"It's safe to say that we will be moving toward a less intensiveproposal," he said. "I can't be more specific than that."
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