SEQUIM — A large development proposed on Priest Road just north of Wal-Mart is raising red flags with several residents and others — the same kind of red flags that derailed a subdivision plan for the same area in 1998.
The plan for 150 single-family homes and 52 townhomes on 52.8 acres — a development known as Jennie’s Place — is before the Sequim Planning Commission on Tuesday night.
Plans from the developer, MRP Partners, include buffer zones to protect an irrigation ditch running through the property as well as habitat for a bald eagle and peregrine falcons that are known to frequent the area.
A plan has been prepared to manage water runoff — the land sits atop a recharge zone for an aquifer used for well water — and about a third of the property is dedicated as open space.
Several people, however, have submitted criticisms of the project, saying the city is holding the developer to outdated and inadequate stormwater management standards.
Those whose homes are nearby are also worried that the large subdivision would cut off mountain views and devalue their property.
Newer standards
Some of the most pointed criticism comes from Scott Chitwood, natural resources director with the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, who said that failing to control stormwater at this site could have effects across the watershed.
“The 1992 stormwater design standards required by the city of Sequim are out of date and inadequate to fully address potential stormwater impacts,” he wrote in a letter commenting on the project.
Chitwood and several other commentators noted that the state Department of Ecology issued updated stormwater guidelines in 2001 and this year, and that failing to require the newer standards conflicts with the city’s land use policy.
Planning Commission Chairman John Bridge said the city can only require what it has adopted as policy.
“What I’ve heard is that the city hasn’t adopted those,” he said. “Why we haven’t gotten the updated ones, I’m not sure.”
