Guest Opinion: Friends of San Juans Support Council Sticking to Priorities

By Stephanie Buffum,
Executive Director, Friends of the San Juans

The vesting issue is for the moment done. On Tuesday in a victory for fair and rational land use planning, the County Council voted not to adopt (5 against, 1 for) the initiative.

The vesting mini-initiative sought a 4-year exemption from any change in the law for development in San Juan County.  The realtors’ association lobbied the County Council to pass the initiative to increase sales of shoreline parcels.

FRIENDS opposed the initiative because it was:

Unnecessary.  Washington is already in the minority of states that allows a landowner to vest against the regulations at the early stage of applying for a building permit.

Too broad.  The initiative would have prevented the application of any new land use rules for 4 years from the date that a person filed a residential site plan application.

An End run around the Critical Areas Ordinance Shoreline Master Program Update, and the Unified Development Code administrative review by planners required to sift through multiple sets of regulations.

Unfair to property owners and neighbors who would not know whether land would be developed according to past or current updated plan.

Following this defeat of the initiative, Councilors Patty Miller (Orcas west), Howie Rosenfeld (Town of Friday Harbor), and Rich Peterson (SJ North) voted to move forward a council-sponsored vesting ordinance.  This motion was defeated when it did not receive support from Councilors Jamie Stephens (District 6/Lopez, Shaw, Decatur and Blakely Islands), Richard Fralick (Orcas east/Waldron), or Lovel Pratt (San Juan South).

We applaud Councilors Stephens, Fralick, and Pratt for keeping their nose to the grindstone and completing work on the County’s top three legislative priorities: balancing the county budget, completing the Critical Areas Ordinance and resolving the solid waste crisis. The solid waste crisis costs us all about $25,000 each month it remains un-resolved.

Friends believes that our Council should complete balancing the budget, solving the solid waste crisis ($25k deficit per month); and complete the CAO (due in 2005) before taking on new special interest sponsored initiatives that benefit only a few.