SEQUIM — A City Council public hearing and comment session on a major retail shopping center was canceled Monday night after the city received notice that afternoon of an appeal challenging the project.

Council members were to have considered the city Planning Commission’s recommendation that a commercial overlay, or “C-4” zone designation, be issued on a parcel targeted for a 30-acre regional shopping center southeast of the city’s downtown core.

Bell Farm Center, which could be anchored by a Fred Meyer department store, would lie in the center of a 76-acre parcel near South Sequim Avenue and East Hammond Street.

But the citizens group, Sequim First, and Sequim Investors LLC, which owns much of the retail complex housing Safeway on West Washington Street, notified the city late Monday afternoon that they intended to appeal City Planning Director Dennis Lefevre’s determination of non-significance under the State Environmental Protection Act, or SEPA.

Environmental statements

The appellants are asking the City Council to order full environmental-impact statements on Bell Farm before upholding Lefevre’s permitting.

Their appeal ended Monday night’s scheduled public hearing before it could start at Carrie Blake Park’s Guy Cole Convention Center.

City Manager Bill Elliott explained that the council’s hands were tied by state law requiring sufficient public notice be given prior to a SEPA hearing.