Thursday deadline for comments on hillside clearing

Thursday, Feb. 19 is the cut-off day for comments on the after-the-fact clearing and grading permit for logging operations done on a Vusario hillside last September.

Any member of the public can comment on the permit — 08 SEPA011 — for tax parcel 1730-52002, property located at 1052 Vusario Road, owned by Peter Vogt of La Jolla, Calif. by mailing:
County Planner Julie Thompson,
Courthouse Annex
135 Rhone St.
P.O. Box 947
Friday Harbor, WA 98250 or emailing her at Juliet@sanjuanco.com.

The County may make a decision about granting the post-facto permit as soon as Feb. 26, said Thompson, and the decision can be appealed during the next 21 days.

Timber cleared from hillside without obtaining proper clearing and grading permits. Contributed photo

Photographs presented to the County Council in September of the clearing operation which took place last September without a permit prompted calls for tickets and stiffer fines for code violations.

Former Orcas Council member Alan Lichter said the lack of enforcement for county laws such as permitting codes has created “a culture of permissiveness.”

County Prosecutor Randy Gaylord has said that the current system, “assumes violations are in large part unintentional.”

Permits have taken as long as 16 weeks to obtain in the past, according to a study issued last year by the San Juan County Builders’ Association, and County Administrator Pete Rose told the council last fall that it should consider the time it takes for permits to be processed when it contemplates raising penalties for after-the-fact permits such as the 08 SEPA011 clearing and grading permit.

However, Gaylord said to the Council in September, “there should be a penalty for getting a permit after the fact. It’s about double now. It should be maybe five times as much.”

County code enforcement has historically been driven by complaints from the public, but a “ticketing ordinance” for violations of county laws has been in the pipeline for over a year.

Recently, the County Council approved a draft version of the ticketing ordinance, and sent the draft to the Planning Commission for public hearings and changes to it.

Council member Gene Knapp said, “The new draft will penalize people — with raised penalties — who begin projects without a permit, instead of the previous system of allowing after-the-fact permits — with no penalties.

“Those [after-the-fact permits] will become violations with penalties.”