Review board favors 124th Street annexation

The Washington State Boundary Review Board for Snohomish County voted unanimously in favor of Sultan's 124th Street Annexation proposal, after brief deliberations last week.

The hearing took place at the Snohomish County Administration Building in Everett. Proceedings began on Thursday, Aug. 18, with nearly four hours of testimony, after which the board adjourned. It reconvened on Thursday, Aug. 25, for deliberations and a decision. During the testimony portion of the hearing, the city of Sultan was represented by Kenyon Disend attorney Amy Mill, annexation petitioners by land use attorney Duana Kolou+íkov+í and opposing property owners by attorney Jocelynne Fallgatter.

The property is made up of eight parcels situated on the north side of 124th Street Southeast, a dead-end roadway 1.4 miles up Sultan Basin Road. The property is in Sultan's Urban Growth Area (UGA), and contiguous on the west side with the northernmost section of the Sultan city limits, a 35-acre parcel that contains the city's water treatment plant.

UGAs are mandated by the Washington State Growth Management Act and defined as areas in which "urban growth shall be encouraged.GÇ¥ The property was tentatively slated for a residential development of more than 300 homes, but there is no plan in place. The city's proposed zoning would allow for four homes per acre, but not all of the annexation area's roughly 80 acres would be developed, according to a property owner.-á

"The property is going to be developed; that is their intention,GÇ¥ Mill said.

BRB member Alison Sing asked if the city had confirmed that its police and fire departments could adequately serve the annexation area.

"We received emails from them that said that they were fine with it, that there was no problems,GÇ¥ said Sultan permit assistant Cyd Donk.

Opponents to the proposal have raised concerns about road safety, lack of urban services, the area's rural nature and the fact that the annexation property protrudes north of city limits, forming a T-shape that is only contiguous with existing city limits on one side. And because of recent county decisions regarding UGA boundaries, the area located directly southeast of the property is unincorporated county that was not added into the UGA.

Additionally, opponents have argued that since population targets for the city were decreased by 25 percent, there is less need for new residential areas. -á -á

Four spoke in favor of the proposal, including property owner Rusty Drivstuen, who has been working to get the property annexed for more than a decade. A lifelong resident of the Monroe and Sultan areas, Drivstuen currently lives at the annexation site. He's been a Sultan business owner for 21 years.

Downtown Sultan floods, he said, and it makes sense to him that future growth would occur in the eastern part of the city. The state mandates that cities plan for future growth, Drivstuen said, and Sultan is lacking potential residential development sites in the city limits.

"I don't know where the growth is going to go,GÇ¥ Drivstuen said. "I am a developer. I do choose good property and I spend a lot of time looking at it. This piece of property does not have one square inch of wetlands, it's 100 percent gravel ' it's probably one of the nicest pieces of property for development that I've ever seen.GÇ¥

A dozen stakeholders gave testimony in opposition to the annexation.

Stan Heydrick expressed concerns about the city's limitations surrounding sewer capacity. He said there has been a mischaracterization of the area as being in transition from rural to urban and that the annexation area forms an illogical boundary.-á

"The annexation area leap frogs over hundreds of acres of county properties, which by recent county decision will remain in the county, with the denied UGA expansion,GÇ¥ Heydrick said. "The annexation area remains virtually an island creating an illogical boundary.GÇ¥

Level of service concerns were repeatedly brought up during testimony, specifically related to the city's existing sewer capacity.

Former Sultan City Councilmember Kay George zeroed in on the city's current efforts to obtain grant funding for a new pedestrian bridge that would cross the Sultan River from River Park at First and Main streets, to Sportsman Park near the city's wastewater treatment plant. She said the city received grant funding to help design the bridge, but has not been able to fund its construction.

She referred to the grant as a "loan,GÇ¥ since the city will have to pay it back if it doesn't fund the project within a certain amount of time. The bridge was multipurpose, she said. Not only was the city asking for a safer way for pedestrians to cross the bridge, but they needed to install a larger sewer pipe.-á

"They can't put bigger sewer pipes on the existing bridge there, that carries the traffic, so they thought, "Well, we'll get this pedestrian bridge and put the sewer pipes on that,' GÇ¥ George said. "And in that "loan,' they said how desperately they needed these sewer pipes.GÇ¥

She asked the board to consider those implications. She said she is pro-development, but wants good development.

"I want development that doesn't kick the can down the road,GÇ¥ George said.

Public Works Director Mick Matheson confirmed that the city is aggressively pursuing grant funding to pay for the bridge, which is estimated at roughly $3.5 million. Meant to help improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety, it's a dual purpose bridge, he said.

"It would also serve as a utility bridge to hang a new 18-inch diameter sanitary sewer force main,GÇ¥ Matheson said. "All of the sewage from the east side of the city comes to one pump station and it's currently pumped across the Sultan River through a 6-inch force main that's hung from the U.S. 2 bridge.GÇ¥

Matheson said the 6-inch force main is too small, and needs to be upsized. The new bridge would serve as a means to convey the larger force main across the river, he said.

"In addition, we'd be building a new 12-inch ductile iron water main to improve fire flow to the west side of the city,GÇ¥ Matheson said.

Fallgatter echoed George and Heydrick's concerns over sewer capacity, adding that, at one point, she had heard remaining capacity estimated at 121 additional homes. Recent infiltration and inflow improvements in the downtown area may have added some capacity, she said, but there is uncertainty as to the total number.

"Nobody really knows what those numbers are right now; they always change,GÇ¥ Fallgatter said.

There are simply too many unanswered questions to annex, she said.

The BRB asked for clarification as to how much capacity is remaining. Matheson said he didn't know the exact number off the top of his head, but the city has capacity for several hundred more lots and is actively pursuing grant funding for the bridge, including frequent trips to Olympia. They have also discussed the possibility of building a sanitary sewer detention system, to help mitigate the impacts of additional development should the bridge not be constructed.

Discussion ensued about the city's concurrency requirements, which are in place to ensure that additional homes could not be built unless the city was able to accommodate the land development proposal. All of which would be subject to public process, including hearings, Kolou+íkov+í said.

"If the city ran out of capacity in the sewer, my client could not shove lots down the city's throat,GÇ¥ Kolou+íkov+í said. "There would be a sewer moratorium.GÇ¥

Land development is fraught with risk, she said, and not something for the weak of heart.

No further testimony was heard during last week's proceedings. The board said the proposal was different from the typical annexation requests it reviews. Per state law, the board has nine objectives that must be examined when making a determining on an annexation, specifically, whether the request furthers or hinders each objective. During the board's review, it determined that most of its objectives were furthered, while some were not applicable.

The BRB will adopt its written decision on Sept. 1.

Any appeal on behalf of the opposition would need to take place in Snohomish County Superior Court. After the hearing, Fallgatter gave no indication of her group's intentions.