More Questions & Timbers Edge Info - 1/11/09

More Questions. There are questions regarding the Illahee Creek culvert and the new Gilberton Creek culvert.

Illahee Creek Questions. What is happening with Illahee Creek? Did the County's excavation of all the sediment in the culvert work? Were there any problems with the December storms? We heard the culvert is filling back up with sediment - is that true?

Gilberton Creek Questions. We heard there is a grant being applied for to restore Gilberton Creek? Are you going to post any pictures of the small bank washouts upstream and downstream of the new culvert? Is the Great Peninsula Conservancy trying to buy Gilberton Creek adjoining properties? We heard that the southern portion of the Gilberton Creek watershed and the culvert is within the Illahee Community boundary, but not the lower portion of the stream? Who is the point of contact for Gilberton Creek questions?

Timbers Edge Legal Document List Update. It turns out we did not list all the legal documents in our previous Update. We left off the "attachments" to the Illahee Community Club closing arguments (now Document #3) and failed to note the Timbers Edge closing arguments (now Document #4). We think the following list of documents is now correct. (NOTE: SOME OF THESE DOCUMENTS ARE TOO LARGE TO BE UPLOADED AT THIS TIME)

Document #1. Illahee Community Club Closing Brief Regarding Lack of Compliance with County Code (Sent out on 1/10/09)

Document #2. Illahee Community Club Closing Brief Regarding Lack of Compliance with the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) (Attached)

Document #3. Illahee Community Club Closing Brief Attachments (Attached)

Document #4. Timbers Edge Closing Arguments

Document #5. Timbers Edge Rebuttal to the Illahee Community Club's Closing Briefs

Document #6. Illahee Community Club Reply to the Timbers Edge Rebuttal

State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) Appeals. We don't know much about these appeals except they seem to be subjectively decided. The issue seems to be what is a "significant" impact. The developers deny their project will have a significant impact and are good at finding engineers who agree with them. After all, it is a matter of someones interpretation of "significant."

County Generally Sides With Developers. The county normally tries to work out the best deal they can for the environment, to a point. However, when the developer's engineers come in with documents that say there will be no significant impact of a project they need to generally agree since these documents are signed by registered Professional Engineers. That is unless there is conflicting information.

Community Involvement Needed. That is where communities need to be vigilant because there are developers, engineers, and expert witnesses out there who will provide answers not necessarily for the benefit of the community or the environment.

Illahee Involvement Example. An example of how the Illahee community first became involved with Timbers Edge project was when large concrete detention vaults were being proposed to be installed on the steep slopes of Illahee Creek. Briefly, the developer's geotech firm said it wasn't a problem, so the community hired a geotech firm to do an independent study and they concluded there were problems. That situation then required a third party independent study that agreed there were problems. If the community had not gotten involved they would likely be living with the detention vaults, along with all the county taxpayers would have inherited paying for any future problems.

Another County Reason to Side With Developers. Another reason the county sides with developers is if they deny a project and the developer challenges it in court and is successful, the county ends up paying all the court costs along with damages. So with those possible financial liability concerns, county officials are likely advised to side with the developers and very rarely do they find "significant" impacts that would warrant an environmental impact statement or EIS.

Another Problem for Communities. Another problem communities have is they do not have equal status once the county has made a determination there is no significant environmental impact or that the impact can be mitigated to not be a significant impact. The county environmental officer's decision is weighted or given extra authority over that of the community. The only possible way to prevail is for the community's expert witnesses to be so good or compelling that Hearing Examiner is somehow swayed to rule against the county officer. It then becomes a situation of the Hearing Examiner's ability to understand the issues and rule appropriately. In Kitsap County they have rarely, if at all, over-ruled the environmental officer's decision.

Why The SEPA Appeal Then? That is a good question for the Illahee Community Club. We have heard they felt they had no choice. They have told us that they feel the possibility of losing Illahee Creek as a salmon stream was a significant environmental impact that the Hearing Examiner could not ignore.

SEPA Arguments. That was a long introduction from our non-legal background and possibly uninformed perspective of the SEPA issues. The particulars of the Timbers Edge SEPA appeal are in the attached document. The attachments to the SEPA appeal are in the second attached document.

Comments Appreciated. We have given you our best understanding and appreciate any alternative interpretations and comments.

Jim Aho

Questions & Timbers Edge Information - 1/10/09

Questions. We have been getting questions on a number of items we present in our Illahee Updates.

Examples. What are the new Illahee community boundaries? What was a peacock doing in the Preserve? Why were you glad to see the commercial corridor removed from the Community Plan? What are bio-infiltration swales? What is tightlining and why is it bad? Where is Illahee North and its detention pond? What is happening with Timbers Edge and what are the legal issues? Where is Timbers Edge? When is the sewer going to be installed? Are they still dumping untreated stormwater at the Illahee dock? When are you going to put in my wildlife report? What is happening around the Illahee Preserve by the Mental Health facilities? We saw some flagging on Almira - is it for the proposed Preserve parking lot?- is it going to be built soon? When is the final updated Illahee Community Plan going to be issued? Are you going to have party to celebrate? Is the Citizens Advisory Group going to disband or keep meeting?

These and many more are questions residents have asked and we would like to start answering them as best we can. If anyone would like to try and answer any of these, please feel free and we will pass them on.

Timbers Edge Response. Timbers Edge items are the most often asked questions. First of all, Timbers Edge is a proposed development going in along the ridge south of the main fork of Illahee Creek. Residents in the area of the development are concerned about the small legacy sized lots (many are 3400 square feet), and the traffic impact on Fir Drive, which is not being upgraded. Others are concerned about the impact to Illahee Creek fearing further loss of the base flow in the creek will result in it no longer being a viable salmon stream. Those concerns were substantiated by studies paid for by community residents several years ago that cost approximately $14,000. This past year the Port of Illahee/Department of Ecology grant report also substantiated the concern of the residents regarding the base flow in the stream.

Residents Not Against Development. The residents in the area are not against development, just the high density development being proposed, and the detrimental impact to Illahee Creek.

Compromise Recommended. Resident representatives met with the developer and recommended larger lots with septic systems as being acceptable to the community, but were told that the cost of putting in sewers was small in comparison with the anticipated profit, and therefore the developer rejected the idea.

Legal Battle In Progress. The community met and agreed to hire a lawyer to contest some of the development issues. Most importantly, they provided the dollars necessary for the legal battle. This was on top of the legal costs associated with the Illahee Outfall Project that was appealed to the Shorelines Hearings Board and is currently going through a settlement process. Those costs in 2008 for both appeals amounted to a few dollars short of $20,000; mostly for lawyer fees and expert witnesses.

Legal Costs Continue. The legal costs for Timbers Edge continued with written closing arguments and the Illahee Community Club urgently needs contributions to its legal fund, which will be substantial again in 2009.

Legal Documents. We have received copies of the legal documents and are going to send out them out over the next few days. We have found them well written and interesting. There are four documents so far with the latest being sent out on Friday 1/9/09.

Document #1 Illahee Community Club Closing Brief Regarding Lack of Compliance with County Code (Attached)

Document #2 Illahee Community Club Closing Brief Regarding Lack of Compliance with the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA)

Document #3 Timbers Edge Rebuttal to the Illahee Community Club's Closing Brief.

Document #4 Illahee Community Club Reply to the Timbers Edge Rebuttal

Legal Appeals Costly. As a person reads these documents the high costs become evident. A synopsis of the comments of many residents is something like this: "We will live here for many years, possibly our lifetime. If we don't stand up for what we think is right, we will end up with a mismatched development, road/traffic problems, a degraded or failed salmon stream, among other things. This appeal is the only opportunity we have to try to get this development done right and if you don't do something now we only have ourselves to blame."

Large pdf Files. These documents are large pdf files and many email providers do not allow these large attachments, which is one of the reason we are sending them separately. Even this first email Update may not be received my some and may have to be resent with out the attached file. We would then look at putting it up on the website. NOTE: These files are too large at this time to be posted on the website.

Jim Aho