CATHCART — New movement in the appeal of a proposed townhouse development at Cathcart Way and Highway 9 has put a lot back on the table by the County Council in advance of an appeal hearing they'll be deciding on this week.
The appeal argues that the public was kept in the dark when the plan morphed from a town center concept shown to the public to a predominantly residential complex. The appeal says the county planning department took missteps in how it handled this plan, and the county hearing examiner excluded the voices of nearby residents before granting final approval, making it an unfair hearing.
Resident Debbie Wetzel's appeal asks to void the hearing examiner's decision and have the project go through a new land-use hearing.
A large group of nearby residents object to D.R. Horton's plan to build 286 townhomes at the site.
The County Council will hold the appeal hearing Wednesday, Oct. 5 at 1:30 p.m. It's in person and also on Zoom. Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/94846850772
A park-and-ride is to be built on an adjacent, county-owned lot.
On Sept. 28, Wetzel filed a separate appeal over the park-and-ride lot. This is to get it reconsidered because, she said, the environmental analysis to approve Horton's plan didn't include this site.
“The purchase-and-sale directly says Horton has to build the park-and-ride and they deliberately kept it out,” Wetzel said by phone. Her appeal states “the entire project is contingent on the Applicant (D.R. Horton) building a park and ride.”
The site in question is a 31-acre piece of county-owned land on the southwest corner of state Route 9 and Cathcart Way. In July, the county finalized selling the site for $8.4 million to a subsidiary of D.R. Horton, one of the nation’s largest homebuilder firms.
On July 7, County Hearing Examiner Peter Camp approved D.R. Horton's plan to build 286 townhouses plus a fast food restaurant and a mini-storage center here.
On Sept. 30, Wetzel filed a request to have Camp’s decision rescinded on the basis he has a direct conflict of interest in favor of the county because he works for the county. Wetzel has requested six times asking for an outside hearing examiner to do a brand-new hearing.
Items addressed
On Sept. 28, the County Council addressed a series of items in the lead-up to the Oct. 5 hearing.
First, the council will newly consider all of Wetzel's exhibits at the Oct. 5 hearing.
These exhibits contain the original issues Wetzel raised in a petition for the hearing examiner's decision be reconsidered. They include documents with material facts — including traffic analyses and a copy of the purchase-and-sale agreement — that weren't included as relevant documents in the records for the hearing. Hearing examiner Camp rejected them, which prompted Wetzel to appeal to the County Council.
Second, the County Council declined a request by D.R. Horton last month to dismiss two points of Wetzel's main appeal: That the public notice was inadequate, and that the purchase-and-sale wasn't revealed during proceedings.
The council declined on the basis it wants to refrain from material decisions until the Oct. 5 hearing.
The contention about public notice says many interested neighbors wanted to be part of the record for the land use decision and were excluded. The contention about the purchase-and-sale is that since this wasn't disclosed as public knowledge as part of the land-use hearing before the county hearing examiner, meaning people couldn’t necessarily speak to the document at the hearing, then the hearing examiner's decision should be voided and a new hearing should be held.
Wetzel's attorney obtained the purchase-and-sale agreements between the county and D.R. Horton through public disclosure requests.
Third, the Council barred evidence submitted by another neighbor, Linda Gray, from being considered because it said these came too late.
Wetzel called Sept. 28 an exhausting day in a phone call. She has been trying to have the whole lot considered since June when she filed an appeal to the hearing examiner that was rejected.
Snohomish County Public Works listed the site for sale as surplus land in 2018 because it no longer needed it for landfill purposes.
D.R. Horton submitted its development application in April 2021. Neighbors living within 500 feet of the project got a postcard notice.
— Tribune archives are included in this story.
