By Margie Doyle
Friends of the San Juans prevail on buffer, habitat, wetlands and utilities challenges
On September 6, 2013, the Growth Management Hearings Board (GMHB) issued its 109-page decision in cases brought before it in five separate appeals to the Critical Areas Ordinance update, passed by the San Juan County Council in January 2013.
The update has occupied county council, staff and residents for nearly 10 years.
The Board’s findings of the multiple issues before it were laid out in over 100 pages; and the 11 components of its order of non-compliance concluded the decision.
In the matter, the County was opposed by five appellants:
- Friends of the San Juans
- Common Sense Alliance
- P.J. Taggares Company
- William Wright
- San Juan Builders Association
The GMHB combined the cases of the Common Sense Alliance and Taggares.
In reading the decision the phrase repeated most often is: “The Board finds that the [appellant] have failed to meet the burden of proof.”
However, the Friends of the San Juans prevailed in several of the 48 issues they brought to the GMHB, including the placement of utility lines, such as sewage and stormwater lines, within critical areas (p. 66); and the inadequacy of buffers (p. 60). The Board also issued findings in support of the Friends’ positions regarding Fish and Wildlife Habitat, the definition of “development,” and wetlands.
In many of these instances, the GMHB stated that County ordinances were “clearly erroneous.”
The Board declined to rule on issues outside its mandate, such as constitutionality.
While many may find the legal document dry reading material, more have an interest in its import. Near the end there is a sentence that injects a little “blood” into the obscure discourse when the Hearing Board Examiners write:
“Here these Petitioners have done a masterful job of attempting to steer the Board into a constitutional thicket by interweaving the questions of nexus, proportionality, and reasonable necessity into its Goal 6 claims. However the Board cannot follow [this]…lead.” (p.101)
The hope that the GMHB would invalidate the controversial ordinance came to naught at the Board Examiners wrote:
“The Friends [of the San Juans], San Juan Builders, CSA/Taggares ask the board to impose invalidity… [which is] authorized only after the Board has made a finding of non-compliance and based on a determination the challenged action, in whole or in part, would substantially interfere with the fulfillment of the goals of the Growth Management Act (GMA).
“The Board declines to impose invalidity.” (p. 105)
The Order identifies 11 areas of non-compliance, and gives dates in March and April 2014, with a compliance hearing scheduled for April 24, 2014.
The Hearing Board members are: William Roehl, Nina Carter, Paymond Paolella
The county was represented by Amy Vira.
(To read the full Decision and Order, go to: 13-2-0012c Final Decision and Order
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Go Friends!!
With all due respect, your headline and text on this important story, though correct, misses the mark. Much more significant than the issue of “invalidity” are the many findings by the GMHB of non-compliance as a consequence of various appeals, particularly some of those raised by the capable attorneys for the Friends.
Note that the GMA is written with “the presumption of validity” under the Act given to ANY POLICIES WHATSOEVER enacted by a local jurisdiction…if the SJC Comp Plan declared “the world of SJC is flat”, that would be just fine w/ the GMHB…UNLESS, an appeal is filed…it is only during the appeal process that questions of compliance w/ the goals and policies of the GMA are sorted out.
Ultimately, I believe our community would be better served by reaching broad consensus on our collective future rather than being at the effect of a powerful, well-funded effort to impose a certain point of view on everyone.