PORT ANGELES — Clallam County commissioners have given the go-ahead to a Dungeness Valley cluster developer to build 14 lots at Discovery Trail Farm.
That’s five lots short of the 19 that David LeRoux wants to build on 16 acres of his 70-acre farm near Sequim.
LeRoux wants to cluster a development in the center of the farm and preserve the remaining 54 acres as working farmland for future generations.
“The cluster ordinance promised me 19, so unfortunately, this project is not finished,” LeRoux said Wednesday.
“I have to go back at a later date for the other five I’m entitled to.”
LeRoux has spent the past six years trying to demonstrate to the state Department of Ecology that the cluster approach is a viable way of preserving farmland and water.
Commissioners Steve Tharinger, Mike Doherty and Mike Chapman approved the 14-acre plat by a unanimous vote Tuesday.
The farm is on an agricultural retention development south of Old Olympic Highway and east of Kitchen-Dick Road.
The cluster is the first of
its kind on the North Olympic Peninsula.
LeRoux and his business partner, Walter Johnson, initially purchased 13 five-acre lots. Rather than seeing a house go up on each lot, LeRoux and Johnson wanted to preserve open space and a working farm.
But Ecology considers Discovery Trail Farm one development, with a total water right of 5,000 gallons per day. Once developed, each lot would have access to about 325 gallons per day.
LeRoux would have had access to 65,000 gallons if he didn’t pursue the cluster and kept the five-acre parcels.
“What Ecology needs to do is develop a plan friendly to a project that saves water,” LeRoux said.
Two of the lots at Discovery Trail Farm are already developed, including one LeRoux lives on. He expects to close sales on four more lots this summer.
LeRoux intends to sell the farmland to Gene Adophson, a commercial farmer who leases the farm and grows hay, wheat, barley and other products.
County commissioners and staff support the cluster development. However, the commissioners and a hearing examiner upheld Ecology’s 5,000-gallons-per-day requirement last summer.
“I never thought government would be this difficult to work with,” LeRoux said.
LeRoux said he would like to see the county take the cluster code off the books to prevent others from ending up in his position, or develop a policy that promotes a cluster ordinance.
He has already invested $1 million in infrastructure for the development.
“This project of mine saves over 50 acres of farmland, and it’s a model for water conservation,” LeRoux told commissioners Tuesday.
“This code promised me 19 building lots, and I’m stuck at 14 building lots. Until I get those other five lots, my wife and I will never, ever be out of debt.”
In his case, LeRoux said, Ecology rules are “impediments” to innovative projects like his.
“I’d be really happy if we just took Ecology out of their name because nothing is ecological about the Department of Ecology,” LeRoux said.
“It’s just an organization of myopic bureaucrats who make rules and regulations, and in this case, they’re not really helping the situation.”
In a June 2010 hearing before the county commissioners, LeRoux said he wanted the county to “flex more muscle” and stand up to Ecology.
Doherty said LeRoux was “ahead of his time” by developing the cluster.
Tharinger said the sticking point for Discovery Trail Farm is water law.
“When you start talking about water, you start talking about one of the most complex legal issues I think that exists in land division, land use and long-term societal survival,” Tharinger said.
“It’s just not easily changed.
“I know this project over the years has been a very challenging project for Mr. LeRoux and his partners, but I just want to commend them for their effort to look at innovative tools that maybe all the regulations, particularly in this case water regulations, don’t help support that.
“As we look to the future, having these kind of working landscapes available to us in the Dungeness Valley is going to be very, very important.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com
