Decision on Carlsborg manufactured homes site expected by Aug. 11

By Matthew Nash

Olympic Peninsula News Group

CARLSBORG — Clallam County Hearing Examiner Andrew Reeves will make a decision by Aug. 11 on whether 73 manufactured homes go forward with construction at the corner of Hooker and Atterberry roads in Carlsborg.

The project has drawn contention from neighbors since May over several issues ranging from water impacts to home prices to an increase in traffic.

Chris Anderson, owner of CA Homes Inc., has proposed the CA Homes Mobile Home Park for residents 55 and over, to be built over three phases in three years on 7 acres of the 15.5-acre property.

The park is now called Atterberry Landing on updated planning documents.

The manufactured homes, Anderson said, would range from 1,200-1,700 square feet and sell for about $125,000-$150,000, with each home leasing the property.

If approved, the first phase would include up to 43 homes.

A June 1 public hearing on the project at the Clallam County Courthouse was continued to last Thursday after Reeves requested more site studies, saying the application was “almost a blank slate.”

Reeves required a critical areas report, a preliminary drainage report, landscape plan, revised site plan, lighting plan, fencing plan, pedestrian circulation plan for accessing green space and a traffic study.

Residents calling themselves the Concerned Atterberry Neighbors, through their attorney Bryan Telegin of Bricklin & Newman of Seattle, requested the hearing be continued again for numerous reasons.

One of their concerns, Telegin said, was that Anderson didn’t turn in his reports one week in advance of the public hearing, which didn’t give them time to fully comment.

Documents were submitted last Monday, but Reeves and Anderson agreed that submitting the documents a week in advance was a goal and not a requirement.

Rather than make a decision on the proposal by July 27, Reeves gave the public until Friday to comment further on the new studies and Anderson and his associates the opportunity to reply to those comments by the end of business on July 28.

Reeves’ decision will be made by Aug. 11, he said.

New exhibits

The county’s senior planner, Donella Clark, said with the new plans submitted, she still recommends the project move forward.

Per the county staff’s report, she said Anderson is still required to widen Atterberry Road on the north side by 17 feet and install hard surface roads inside the parcel under a notice of Mitigated Determination of Non-Significance.

Clark said that under current county code, the traffic study wasn’t required and was something Reeves requested.

She also said the county continues to define Matriotti Creek, west of the project, as a type III stream, which requires a 100-foot buffer from structures to protect endangered steelhead spawning in the creek.

A type II stream designation would increase the buffer to 150 feet.

Clark maintains it is a type III stream under county codes.

Neighbors contest that the county’s Critical Area’s Map states otherwise and that if a new environmental review was performed, the project would either be denied or be revised severely.

Since the first hearing, neighbors have continued to contest Anderson’s State Environmental Policy Act application, which references two previous proposals on the property — a 21-lot subdivision’s 1995 environment review that was updated in May 2007 and a proposed three-lot subdivision at more than 5 acres each from 2015.

Neighbors stated the environmental reviews are outdated, inaccurate and water issues on the site may lead to flooding, runoff and many other issues such as conflicts with ongoing efforts up and downstream to increase fish habitat for species like endangered steelhead.

Debra Stevens, an Atterberry Road resident and a retired planner with the city of Lynnwood, said Anderson’s wetland delineation report misstated the buffer size from Matriotti Creek only needed to be 75 feet.

Telegin testified that the new documents still don’t address environmental impacts and don’t state the size of the detention pond and that there’s “no sensible information to critique.”

However, Reeves said he wasn’t in a position to determine if the creek is type II or III.

Neighbors and Carlsborg residents continued to testify that the site could be an aquifer recharge area, which could lead to water issues in the area if the site was developed.

However, Anderson’s consulting designer, Tracy Gudgel of Zenovic & Associates Inc., said they plan to put in a detention pond for stormwater instead of an infiltration pond because he believes the site isn’t an aquifer recharge area based on the area’s soil.

Clark said staff haven’t reviewed the pond yet because they haven’t received a permit for it and it’s “a totally separate process in my opinion.”

Gudgel added that he didn’t feel a highly detailed traffic study was needed since Costco left.

In his staff’s traffic report, it states the traffic loads are less than 25 percent of the volumes since Costco moved from the proposed manufactured homes’ site in 2006.

According to Gudgel’s firm’s study, Atterberry Road’s average daily traffic grew 5 percent and Hooker Road’s grew by 2.5 percent annually, and with the new development, the peak hourly volume will be 182 vehicle trips.

“There’s nothing more you can do with Hooker [Road] and U.S. Highway 101,” he said. “The only other option would be an overpass.”

Stevens contends the traffic report was not done by a licensed traffic engineer and shouldn’t be considered.

Thoughts, concerns

At last week’s hearing, some neighbors and Carlsborg residents expressed concerns over the county’s zoning, or lack thereof, for projects like this.

Steffan Sherman of Atterberry Road said much of the proposed project comes down to “feel” and that it doesn’t feel right because neighbors weren’t aware of zoning in their area that made manufactured homes permissible.

“I feel our community is being boxed in by the technicalities of the legal system,” he said.

He also said “it didn’t feel right to not have any reports,” which why Reeves asked for more.

“Now technically none of these reports are required because of a glitch in the code,” Sherman said. “The insanity of the process needs to be cleaned up.”

Despite more than 100 exhibits of studies and testimony and more than 400 people signing a petition opposed to the project, Reeves said his role isn’t to make his determination on a “tipping scale if enough people were opposed.”

“My role as Clallam County hearing examiner is to look specifically at what the code provides and determine if the proposal complies with the code,” he said. “Although we do take public concern very seriously, it’s not the overriding decision that will be made.”

When discussing the possibility of continuing the hearing, Reeves told Telegin that for Anderson’s binding site plan, opposed to a preliminary plan, the requirements are “next to none.”

Reeves said he used his authority to require more information to make the public fully apprised, but the lack of requirements for more studies and information is “a problem with the code” and not because Anderson was withholding information.

When asked on his thoughts, Anderson said he’s complied or will comply with all the requirements of him.

He did question neighbors’ concerns over mitigation though such as water issues.

“If the county was worried about the mitigation, why wasn’t something put in place when Costco went in?” Anderson asked.

For more on the proposed project, visit http://tinyurl.com/PDN-Atterberry.

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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him at mnash@sequimgazette.com.