SEQUIM — The Sequim City Council has extended an emergency moratorium on master-planned overlays for another six months.
The moratorium pauses accepting, processing and approving overlay projects such as Westbay’s proposed 600-lot development by John Wayne Marina.
Westbay, proposed by Seabrook Holding Company, is the only overlay project pending in the city. Its application was deemed technically incomplete last July. City staff have said their report on Westbay wasn’t a complete substantive review but a process to identify the minimum needed to see if a full technical review can continue.
Westbay will not be able to achieve a technically complete application until the moratorium is lifted, staff said.
Council members originally approved the moratorium last July 28 at staff’s recommendation, and public hearing was held on Sept. 22. City Attorney Kristina Nelson-Gross has said the moratorium was declared so the city could “ensure that the city regulations, comprehensive plans and other guiding regulatory documents have reached a level of consistency that will allow the staff, members of the public and the applicant to have a clear, well-defined process.”
City staff indicated in late December that they would ask council members to extend the moratorium to complete the city’s Comprehensive Plan 2025 update and development regulations. Karla Boughton, the city’s interim director of the Department of Community and Economic Development, reiterated that last week.
Council members voted 6-0 with Brandon Janisse absent on Jan. 26 to extend the moratorium until July 26. They didn’t discuss the extension. Another public hearing will be required to justify the continuation with a work plan, according to city documents.
Council members hold the option to rescind the moratorium prior to July 26 if “necessary updates to the Comprehensive Plan and development regulations have been adopted,” Boughton wrote in city documents.
A draft of the Comprehensive Plan will be made available on April 1, and an online open house is set for April 1-21. Sequim’s Planning Commission will hold a public hearing and make a recommendation to the city council on May 5.
City council members will hold work sessions on May 11, May 26 and tentatively June 1 before public hearings on June 8 and tentatively June 22, if the plan isn’t adopted on June 8.
Tony Corrado was the lone person from the public to speak at the moratorium extension public hearing on Jan. 26, saying the “city has failed to provide adequate responses to the issues related to (Westbay) and some or all of the issues that have been raised by a number of concerned citizens in writing to the mayor and council and staff.”
Corrado asked for a public forum with a factual presentation on the project, and for the city’s online fact sheet to be continuously updated.
“We need facts in full transparency, not obfuscation concerning these development projects,” he said.
“My personal focus, however, is the impact this development will have on the very fragile and critical natural environment associated with the marina’s site, namely the Pitship Estuary. This estuary is critical to salmon reproduction, bird migration and localized wildlife, which the proposed development threatens. Natural groundwater flow and a lack of definitive city requirements for critical setbacks, contamination reduction and infrastructure, frankly, are lacking.”
When the moratorium was first put in place, stakeholders spoke against it and said they were considering legal action against the city for damages and/or pulling out of the project.
In late December, Seabrook staff said they signed an extension with Wayne Enterprises through the city’s moratorium, and they’ve re-engaged city staff about their application.
Boughton wrote in an email reply that Seabrook staff have requested two conversations with city staff in the past two weeks about a work plan and critical areas.
For more information about the moratorium, visit sequimwa.gov/1319/Emergency-Master-Plan-Overlay-Moratorium.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. He can be reached by email at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
