PORT ANGELES — An emergency ordinance to limit the size of homes and businesses in rural Clallam County was axed Tuesday on the commissioners’ dais.
A proposed 60-day moratorium for structures 10,000 square feet or larger in rural residential zones died for a lack of a motion to approve it.
The three-member board had been advised by the county Prosecuting Attorney’s Office that the ordinance would expose the county to liability.
“It’s unfortunate that legal and right are two different things,” said Mary Ellen Winborn, Community Development director.
Winborn proposed the temporary zoning controls in response to a property owner’s plans to erect a 32,000-square-foot structure at 695 E. Sequim Bay Road.
Winborn, who was elected as the county’s top planner in 2014, said the applicant first proposed a 14,000-square-foot bed and breakfast in the spring of 2015.
The unnamed applicant from Los Angeles was not forthcoming with her plans to build a four-story “hotel” that would be more than three times larger than the biggest home in the county, Winborn said.
For comparison, the new Clallam County Public Utility District headquarters off U.S. Highway 101 in Carlsborg is 29,496 square feet, according to the PUD.
Winborn said the emergency ordinance would provide time for more research and would allow the county to gather feedback from affected residents.
She said that the scale of the proposed structure, which has not been permitted, does not fit the development pattern of the rural neighborhood.
“The people that live out there, they’re going to have a hotel next door to them,” Winborn said.
“To me, that’s an emergency.”
Commissioner Mark Ozais, whose east county district includes Sequim Bay, said he supported the ordinance on its face but concluded that it would be “very, very difficult” to defend.
“I share the concerns of many in the community,” Ozias said.
“I think that this potential project raises environmental concerns, it raises neighborhood character concerns, it raises a lot of concerns.
“However, I find myself in the position of having to agree that the potential legal ramifications of enacting this emergency ordinance are significant and unfortunately something that we need to pay very close attention to,” Ozias added.
“I am hopeful that we can work with this applicant, should they decide to move forward with this project, to address all of the — or at least many of the — environmental, scale, traffic and other potential concerns as we’re able to.”
Proposed B&B
According to the preliminary plans, the proposed bed and breakfast would have 17 rooms in five units targeted to guests on the third floor alone.
The top floor would be for the owner or property managers and lower two floors would house commons areas, county Planning Manger Steve Gray told commissioners Monday.
The proposed structure would have 25 bathrooms.
“This is a phenomenon that’s been occurring throughout the country, and there’s even a word that has been coined to describe these kind of houses and structures,” said Port Angeles attorney Craig Miller, who represents the applicant.
“They’re called mansions.”
Miller testified that the emergency ordinance was “reactive” and represented “knee-jerk” planning.
Emergency zoning ordinances are rare and should not be taken lightly, Miller told commissioners.
“You really need to have a reason — a significant, substantive reason — to adopt an emergency
ordinance because you are completely subverting the public process,” Miller said in a public comment period.
“No public input whatsoever. No public hearing. You will have taken a zoning action and you have eliminated the public process.”
Clallam County last adopted an emergency zoning ordinance in 2008 when a Growth Management Act hearings board invalidated the Carlsborg Urban Growth Area for a lack of urban infrastructure.
The county eventually resolved the land-use issues — a sewer system will be built in Carlsborg this year — and the moratorium was lifted in 2011.
B&B ordinance
Miller noted that the Clallam County Planning Commission is considering a bed and breakfast ordinance. The commission held a public hearing on the draft ordinance July 6 and will revisit B&Bs next Wednesday.
“Why can’t it go through the normal process?” Miller asked of Winborn’s proposal.
“Why can’t it be done with the necessary public input? Why is it being short-circuited? I would urge you to be very careful and to ask for a lot of specific reason why this is going on.”
Longtime county resident Ken Reandeau countered that a 32,000-square-foot structure on a 2-acre rural parcel is well outside the norm.
‘A monster’
“This is a monster,” Reandeau said.
“And we need to take the timeout that the director has asked for to get the public and the Planning Commission involved with this.”
The emergency ordinance would have applied only to rural residential areas, not commercial zones.
The county standard for bed and breakfasts is a single-family dwelling with up to five rooms for overnight accommodations, Gray has said.
Ozias said he had heard from constituents on East Sequim Bay Road who had concerns about the size of the structure, not necessarily its proposed use.
“I’m hopeful that we can find a way, using the current codes and regulations that we do have, to address these concerns,” said Ozias, who campaigned last year on the importance of long-term planning.
“To me, the fact that we sit where we do right now underscores the need for us to do a much better job across the organization of thinking about the future that we would like to see, and then putting in place the codes and ordinances necessary to best push us in that direction.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
