PORT TOWNSEND — A Port Hadlock veterinarian is caught in a bureaucratic bind that prevents her from developing 3 acres of Rhody Drive commercial property.
It’s because septic systems are forbidden under the urban growth area Jefferson County is trying to establish in the Port Hadlock-Irondale area.
“I purchased this property in 2005 as a commercial piece of property,” said Joyce Murphy, who owns the acreage at 11000 Rhody Drive.
“I paid a substantial amount of money for this commercial property in order to develop a professional business center, which was planned to bring in several new businesses and 35 to 40 livable wage jobs,” said Murphy, who went before the Jefferson County commissioners on Monday during a public hearing on the Irondale-Port Hadlock urban growth area.
Murphy threatened legal action against the county if she is blocked from developing her site before the county constructs a sewer system in the next 15 years.
But county planners and commissioners said their hands are tied because they cannot allow commercial development without a sewer system.
She said she was never apprised that her property was down-zoned and that she had a six-month period to maintain the commercial zoning status.
Hearing Murphy’s concerns Monday, the county commissioners unanimously approved adoption of the Port Hadlock sewer facility plan, instructing their staff to write an ordinance for signature on the consent agenda next Monday.
The Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board’s action shows “you can’t have urban growth without urban service,” said Joel Peterson, Irondale-Hadlock urban growth area and sewer system project manager.
County Commissioner David Sullivan, D-Cape George, said the county faces the reality of having to obtain sewer system financing to be in compliance with the urban growth area designation.
“Its a real frustrating dilemma we have here,” he said.
State clearance
The urban growth area process required by the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board is a step toward the county obtaining state clearance to begin construction of an Irondale-Port Hadlock sewer system.
The system would serve the grown area and allow higher density, more affordable housing and commercial development in the area.
Although the commissioners called for trying to get around the bureaucratic morass, county Chief Civil Deputy Prosecuting Attorney David Alvarez said there is no guarantee that the Growth Management Hearings Board will allow commercial septic systems in an urban growth area.
Residential survey
Michael Regan, representing the group Irondale Community Action Neighbors, said a survey of 100 residents in the Tri-Area showed 99 percent of them against being in the urban growth area, also known by the abbreviation UGA.
“They don’t like high densities imposed upon them,” Regan said.
Regan, after Murphy expressed her objections, said he would be willing to negotiate with the county.
In a 2005 decision that threw Jefferson County’s Tri-Area planning back eight years, a state growth management panel concluded the county’s designated 2004 Port Hadlock-Irondale urban growth boundaries are inadequate.
The Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board in a final decision handed down to county leaders, ICAN and then-Port Townsend environmental activist Nancy Dorgan concluded that, despite planning efforts, most of the area could not reasonably be served with sanitary sewer in the next 20 years.
County commissioners faced a new set of unique political decisions that included expanding the Irondale-Port Hadlock sewer service area planning to include the entire urban growth area and its residential pockets, more specific sewer infrastructure and suspending the urban growth area to return to less dense rural development standards in the Hadlock area.
County leaders must specifically define how they will fund or finance sewer services to high-density growth areas.
After the commissioners’ action, County Administrator Philip Morley told Murphy the county would attempt to come up with a solution.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
