EVERETT — When the city planning director overruled the all-volunteer historical commission in October days after it unanimously voted against a project, it sparked an existential crisis.
Commissioners heard news of the override secondhand and questioned their usefulness as appointed stewards for historic preservation. One said he considered resigning.
A couple of commissioners put planning director Yorik Stevens-Wadja on a hot seat at their Nov. 29 meeting.
The overrule allowed notable deviations from Everett’s historic preservation code to greenlight tearing down 2115 and 2117 Grand Ave. for a six-unit building with a large rooftop deck.
Stevens-Wadja defended that an overrule can be acceptable in the process “because there’s a big picture that I’m responsible for.”
Commissioners, though, said they’d never seen a deviation so prominent get approval in the historic zones.
Historical Commission chair Amy Hieb told him that “maybe there is something we are seeing that you are not, and I would like you to sit with that. In your decision, you had the potential to completely unravel historic overlays in the city of Everett.”
Giving special permission for the extraordinary size of the proposed rooftop deck was a key piece that commissioners still disagreed with. It was the prime subject in discussing the Grand Avenue project at October’s meeting.
Stevens-Wadja said the roof “didn’t appear to be a core aspect of the historical character” when he approved the total design.
Other design items opposed by the historical commission forced the developer to make design changes it didn’t want to make, Stevens-Wadja said. The project had gone through at least three design reviews at the commission since 2019 which the commission all rejected.
“They kept pushing back,” retiring commissioner Steve Fox told the planning director. “It feels like you finally buckled” in approving it.
Whether a deviation is valid is based on how the proposed design is viewed, and that opinion is based on whether the request would give an “equivalent or superior” result versus complying with the standard rules.
