Urgent message for Stonebrook Homeowners
As some of you may know, the owners of the North Shore Golf Course recently agreed to sell the property to a developer. The purchaser, Northshore Investors, a subsidiary of Soundbuilt Homes, has submitted plans for approval to the City of Tacoma to tear out the course in favor of over 860 single family homes and townhouses. The scope and size of this project cannot be overstated - this would be the largest residential development project in the history of Tacoma taking place on a very small tract of open space immediately adjacent to our neighborhood. This would likely have a dramatic impact on our quality of life for years to come. Although this is within the City of Tacoma’s jurisdiction for approval, many of the negative effects regarding traffic, environment, and home values will be also suffered by the citizens of Federal Way, most of all Stonebrook residents. As we share this peninsula with Tacoma and this massive project borders our neighborhoods, we are as equally vulnerable as our North Tacoma neighbors as to the impact this project will have regarding density, open areas, environmental damage, traffic, and infrastructure.
Please be assured that the Stonebrook Homeowners Association understands your concerns and are actively working with other neighborhoods to protect our home values and quality of life. Although this project is currently blocked temporarily, we feel that it is important that we do our best to keep you informed of the current facts as they are understood and suggest courses of action that each of us can take. This is a regional issue and needs to be confronted by stakeholders throughout the affected region. As more information becomes available, we will post this information on the neighborhood website: www.stonebrook.net.
How would this loss affect us?
A full copy of the submitted plans can be found at: http://savenetacoma.org/Documents/The_Point_at_Northshore_development.pdf. If you have not already done so, please take a moment to look at the attached proposed plat map and note the location of the primary access at Fairwood Blvd. (the southern Stonebrook exit at 47th Avenue SW). Most residents are already well aware of our neighborhood being heavily used as a cut-through thoroughfare for North East Tacoma residents despite the addition of speed bumps on 47th Ave SW.
Additionally, traffic to and from the neighborhood as well as other city infrastructure will be strained. Much like an island, the North Shore neighborhood of Tacoma is not approached through the city of Tacoma, but rather through Federal Way via 340th and 320th Streets. The majority of resulting traffic congestion and crowding issues will undoubtedly take place within the city limits of Federal Way.
From an environmental standpoint, a large portion of the North Shore Golf Course currently serves as a watershed for the headwaters of what the City of Federal Way has designated as a major stream (Joe's Creek) flowing into Stonebrook’s wetland greenbelt, Lorene and Jeane Lakes and ultimately, Puget Sound. The City of Tacoma's own website: http://www.cityoftacoma.org/Page.aspx?hid=925 describes Joe's Creek as providing the largest and best quality reach of salmon spawning and rearing habitat in the southwest portion of King County. Washington State’s budget calls for $856,000 in improvements to Joe’s Creek. It's likely that King County and city funds have also been spent on improvements to this waterway. Eliminating the cutting green in favor of filling the head watershed with non-porous streets, driveways and roofs will likely cause further degradation to the water quality of the watershed, local lakes, and ultimately Puget Sound. This entire area on both sides of the county line is designated as a Level 2 flow control area. This standard is applied to stream systems with erosion-prone channels and/or important aquatic habitat.
The loss of open space and the sheer density of the proposed project are inconsistent with our current quality of life and will undoubtedly have a negative impact upon vital city services, crime, and property values on both sides of the city and county lines.
What is the status of the project?
As of this writing, the application has been determined to be complete and is currently being processed by the City of Tacoma. The applicant has turned in their final application documentation on November 15, 2007. An initial determination of significance is expected from the City of Tacoma by early December. This will determine if the project will be subjected to a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), or if the developer will succeed in achieving a "Mitigated Determination of Non-Significance" (MDNS). Thank you to all of you who are pressuring all agencies involved to require a full EIS.
Some historical information:
On January 30, 2007, The Tacoma
City Council has found that the current Planned Residential Development (PRD)
zoning regulations are not achieving their intended purpose and imposed a
six-month moratorium on the acceptance of a variety of land use permit
applications affecting existing properties that are zoned PRD or the zoning of
new areas to a PRD. The moratorium was effective on February 1 and expires on
August 1, 2007, unless extended.
The ordinance directs the Planning Commission to develop findings of fact and
recommendations within 30 days on the need for and duration of the moratorium.
The Commission is also required to conduct a study to develop revised PRD zoning
regulations to address open space requirements, allowed housing types,
development standards and any other matters of concern. Additional information
regarding the PRD Moratorium can be found at:
http://www.cityoftacoma.org/Page.aspx?hid=5075
On February 20, the City of Federal Way responded to Tacoma’s State Environmental Policy Act request with a very complete and persuasive letter that strongly addresses the concerns of the city and our neighborhood – this was a very positive development. A text of this letter can be found at: http://www.cityoffederalway.com/GetFile.aspx?id=12025.
On November 20, the City of Federal Way sent a second letter to the City of Tacoma regarding the revised application and additional concerns some of these concerns directly address cut-through traffic at the Stonebrook neighborhood. A text of this letter can be found at: http://www.stonebrook.net/Northshore/Northshoreletter02.pdf
As of January 11, the City of Tacoma has issued an initial finding of Determination of Significance (DS) requiring an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). However, the city has adopted an EIS from 1979-1980 for an entirely different purpose and is requiring a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) limited in in scope to aesthetics and land use (zoning) issues. The city is currently accepting comments regarding the scoping of the DS. Please see here for details.
New Update:
Although the Planning Commission and City Council have developed new zoning regulations that greatly improve the definitions of open space (eliminating driveways, sidewalks, private yards...) and greatly reducing the number of homes that can be developed on the course, the developer attempted to avoid this moratorium by filing the application prior to the effective date. On February 26, The City of Tacoma determined that the application is incomplete. The project cannot go forward as submitted and will have to be resubmitted at the conclusion of the current six-month moratorium on Planned Residential Developments (PRD) The applicant failed to address the requirements of the City's Critical Areas Preservation Ordinance regarding potential impacts to a creek that is adjacent to the property and two wetlands on the property by filing a Wetland/Stream Development Permit application as required by the Tacoma Municipal Code. The City also determined that the rezone modification application did not contain the necessary analysis to show that all or a part of the golf course would not be necessary to satisfy the density and open space requirements of the original PRD permit that established the golf course in 1981.
On March 7, the developer filed an appeal with the City of Tacoma. On May 17 & 18 & 29 a hearing was held on that appeal. Sadly, on July 12 the Hearing Examiner ruled in favor of the developer granting their application vesting prior to any new rules developed during the moratorium period. At the time of this writing the city has expressed that they will appeal this decision to the Pierce County Superior Court.
In September it became clear that the City of Tacoma had fatally terminated their own case by legal malpractice of their own legal department. City Attorney Elizabeth Pauli admits her office made “an inexcusable mistake” in failing to properly serve, or deliver, court documents to all parties in the case. This means that all of the work that the city put into fixing their zoning regulations were for not and that the plans must move forward under the zoning regulations as they existed the day prior to the moratorium. The attorney in question
has been fired, but that is little consolation to those of us that must now pay the price for this extraordinary blunder. On September 6, City Manager Eric Anderson sent the following message to the city council: "This is to inform you that Cheryl Carlson’s employment with the City was terminated as of yesterday. She had resigned effective later this month. She was not given the option to exercise that resignation, but was terminated."
This is my no means a done deal, there are still many legal arguments and environmental issues that may very well undo this project!
Stay informed.
The best and most current information can currently be found at www.savenetacoma.org. This site is maintained by a coalition of North East Tacoma residents that are spearheading the opposition on the Tacoma side of the county line. This issue has been also fairly well covered by the Tacoma Tribune and articles concerning the development and moratorium can be searched at: www.thenewstribune.com.
Please look for flyers and updates on the www.savenetacoma.org website for upcoming events. There are ample opportunities and needs for everyone to contribute their time, talents, and treasure.
Participate in the Public Comment Process.
There will be opportunities for public comment and participation of adjacent government jurisdictions with the Tacoma Planning Division during the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) phase and permitting public hearing phase. This will be the period when points not covered by the emergency moratorium can be addressed, such as environmental, infrastructure, traffic, crime, housing quality, appropriateness of the development...
The primary point of contact for all comments is:
5) Be involved.
This is is our home and our neighborhood, but this also has a regional impact that will never be undone if this project is approved. If you are so inclined, the folks at www.savenetacoma.org would certainly appreciate any support that they can get. There are opportunities for each of us to participate in the process, despite the city and county lines between us and the project. You may also think of some way to involve yourself that is not mentioned here. Please share your ideas with your neighbors, friends, associates, and homeowners association, as this will take all of our efforts.
Finally, thank you to all of you that continue to work so hard to derail this proposed project and to the staff and the City of Federal Way planning office for doing such a good job looking after our interests, to date. We will maintain updated news and background information regarding this issue on our website: www.stonebrook.net
Please feel free to contact Eric Elgar (253) 661-5159 / eselgar@aol.com or visit www.savenetacoma.org for any additional information or questions regarding this subject.