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• Letter to Members - 10/24/06

Dear Concerned Neighbor of Wellington,

Two years ago, a small group of neighbors “put their foot down” on unmonitored building and growth by the City of Woodinville. What started as a grass-roots movement now includes over 200 households in the greater Woodinville area and has given the voting citizens a voice with City Council that is respected and to which they listen.

We have a full agenda for our 2-hour Concerned Neighbors of Wellington (CNW) meeting tomorrow evening. We have prepared this document to summarize a few of the key CNW issues so that you can digest them in advance of our meeting if you wish. This includes:

• The status of the Wood Trails/Montevallo application approval process
• Opportunities for public comments
• Changes at Woodinville City Hall
• The moratorium and Citizen’s Advisory Panel, and
• An update as to our CNW organization and the need for funding and assistance during the upcoming critical months.

Spending a few minutes to read through this document before the meeting should help many of you in getting up to speed with the latest news on topics that are important for the continued success of our neighborhood group. Hopefully this document provides answers to many of your questions, and will get you re-energized and involved with CNW, your neighborhood organization. We’ll also post this to the web site at www.wellington-neighborhood.org.

Status of Wood Trails/Montevallo Application Approval Process

As you probably know, many of us have been waiting since spring for the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Wood Trails/Montevallo project. We now expect the FEIS to be published within the next week or two. The project timeline has been on hold while the FEIS was being prepared. Once the FEIS is published, the City’s “clock” (which CNW helped “freeze” over 2 years ago) for deciding whether or not to approve the Wood Trails and Montevallo project starts ticking again. The next 2-3 months are critical for all of us opposed to rezoning this R1 area into 5,500 sq. foot lots with up to 8 houses per acre. Our group, the Concerned Neighbors of Wellington (CNW), needs to focus our efforts on maintaining a strong, coherent, well-supported and unified voice as the process for the two projects moves forward.

An FEIS is normally completed within 60 days after public comments are received on the Draft version of the EIS. However, due to the 200+ of excellent comments made by numerous neighbors the process has taken the city nearly six months to complete. We are expecting the FEIS to be published imminently and have been told by the City that copies will be available for purchase to the public at Kinko’s in Woodinville. Copies should also be available for review at the City and at the Woodinville Library. We will inform you if electronic versions become available via the Internet.

The Concerned Neighbors of Wellington EIS Committee has been preparing for the upcoming FEIS publication. If you are on the City’s mailing list for the Wood Trails project, you will receive a public notice in the mail regarding the availability of the FEIS, and the procedures for filing an appeal. Any person who provided comments previously during the EIS process, or requested in writing that they be put on the City’s mailing list, should receive this notice. Contact the City if you would like to be added to the mailing list. We will post this information on the CNW website also: www.wellington-neighborhood.org.

Once the FEIS is published, the City must provide a 14-day period during which anyone may review it and provide written comments. If you provided comments or testimony on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) in March, 2006, you are strongly encouraged to obtain a copy of the Final Environmental Impact Statement and determine if your comment was appropriately addressed as required by State regulations. If it is your opinion that comments were not adequately addressed, you can file an appeal with the City about the overall adequateness of the FEIS.

Opportunities for Public Comments

One of the most critical opportunities for providing comments or presenting arguments for our opinions regarding the proposed projects is the combined public hearing that will take place in front of a Hearing Examiner. According to the City’s approval process, this public hearing will be a combined public hearing for 3 main elements associated with the Wood Trails/Montevallo projects:

1. The SEPA (environmental) evaluation, which in this case is the FEIS. Any appeals associated with the inadequacy of the FEIS will be heard during this portion of the Hearing.
2. The request for a change in existing zoning. As you recall, the applicant has requested a change in zoning from the existing R-1 (1 residence per acre) to R-4 (4 residences per acre). This also ties into the applicant’s desire to provide sanitary sewer service to the proposed developments.
3. The preliminary plat approval. This concerns the merits and requirements of the actual layout and preliminary design of the proposed developments, such as access roads for the developments, lot layouts, road design, use of open space, plantings, utilities, etc.

This Public Hearing is the “Big One” that many of us have been focused on for more than 2 years. A Hearing Examiner oversees the Hearing, and fills the role of being an independent decision-maker. After reading and listening to all comments provided before and during this Public Hearing, the Hearing Examiner will decide whether to approve or deny the projects. Comments on the preliminary plats and the rezone request can be submitted to the City any time from now to the close of the Public Hearing. We strongly encourage all of you to submit specific written comments one or more times to the City either before or during the Public Hearing. All comments become part of the public record that the Hearing Examiner will consider as he/she develops his decision. Once the Public Hearing ends, any subsequent appeals to the City or Council will be based only on the existing record: no new information/comments will be accepted. Just to reiterate: if you have any concerns at all about the proposed projects, please start preparing and submitting comments to the City now, along with attending and providing comments at the Public Hearing.

You are probably wondering “when is the Public Hearing”? The Public Hearing has not been scheduled yet. According to the City’s application process timeline, the Public Hearing should take place within about 30 days after the FEIS is published. The City should schedule and provide a public notice regarding this important Public Hearing within the 14-day time period that follows the publication of the FEIS. The last time we discussed the schedule with the City, it was their guess that the Hearing would occur sometime in late October-early November this year. Regardless as to the actual date, this most-important event is coming up fast, and we all need to start preparing for it. We will keep you updated as much as possible as to when and how the Public Hearing will take place.

Changes at Woodinville City Hall

Many of you are probably aware of some of the changes that have occurred at City Hall during the last few months, including the resignation of the City Manager (Pete Rose) and the retirement of Dick Fredlund. Dick was the primary contact person in the City’s planning department for the Wood Trails and Montevallo projects. While these events were unfolding, the City also began an internal reorganization of the Planning and Permitting departments, and created a new “all encompassing” department labeled the Development Services Department. This new department is where the Wood Trails/Montevallo permits are now being worked on by City Staff.

The new project manager for the Wood Trails and Montevallo projects is Steve Munson. Please submit all inquiries and comments to his attention. His immediate supervisor is Cindy Baker, who was recently hired as the Interim Development Services Manager overseeing the entire permit and land development applications.

News about the R1 Moratorium and the Citizen’s Advisory Panel

In March, the City Council voted unanimously in favor of adopting a 6-month building moratorium in the R1-zoned area in Woodinville. This Moratorium was extended for an additional 6 months in September, thus putting a halt on new development until March, 2007 at this point. A primary reason for the extension was to allow the completion of the Sustainable Development Study. This study is intended to determine how higher density development would impact known critical environmental areas in the R-1 area. The results of the study will involve updates to the City’s Comprehensive Plan which will likely receive public comment and scrutiny before being adopted by the City Council. To help guide the Sustainable Development Study, A Citizen’s Advisory Panel was formed and several CNW members have served on this committee since June. An update on the progress of the Citizen’s Advisory Panel will be provided during the meeting this evening.

Concerned Neighbors of Wellington Association Update

When we first learned about the proposed developments and zoning change in the spring of 2004 we were told by the city that there wasn’t much we could do and the builder had every right to proceed. We took issue with the fact that the current R-1 zoning (one home per acre) could be so easily changed to allow roughly 66 homes on 10 acres (times two).

Because of our efforts, not one shovel full of dirt was touched in the 2004 building season. Nor in 2005 and still not in 2006! By collaborating together as a group of talented citizens, we have had a significant impact. The attitude at City Hall has changed from “it’s not worth fighting” to “the builder took a real gamble on this zoning change”. Hurray for our efforts!! CNW has become a force to be reckoned with.

There are two reasons why this fight is important to you: Quality of Life and Home Value. There will be an obvious immediate impact to numerous neighbors whose quiet roads will come alive with increased traffic on streets that aren’t able to support the traffic now. There will be neighbors with homes located on lots as small as 5,500 square feet separated by only 8-10 feet instead of the woodsy, critter-friendly environment we enjoy today.

Some neighbors may believe that since they live a street or two away, they won’t really be impacted. We believe this is short term thinking. It must be understood that once the “genie is out of the bottle” with a zoning change to R4 in the current R1 zone, everyone may be facing the living nightmare of a bulldozer showing up on their neighbor’s lot that was suddenly subdivided into 6-8 lots. Once sewers are installed to service Wood Trails and Montevallo, your home may be forced to hook into the system (out-of-pocket estimate of $10K-$20K per home.) We will end up with a checker board of zoning and a permanently changed neighborhood character. It doesn’t take a Real Estate appraiser to acknowledge there will be diminished home values if your stately home on one acre is suddenly sitting next to a postage-stamp size lot with a cracker box house on it.

You moved into the greater Woodinville area to enjoy the rural character and convenient location, right? That’s one of the reasons we all enjoy living here. For many of us, our home is also our greatest financial and retirement asset.

We are entering a period in this battle that is going to get expensive and will require financial support from the CNW members. If we continue on, we will incur significant legal expenses. We are very optimistic and determined, but so is the opposition and they have significant financial resources. Wellington represents about $50 - $60 million in property value. Collectively, we also have significant resources.

We intend to continue the battle we began two years ago and we are not playing for second place. We need you to join us in spirit, time, and financial commitment. There are many neighbors that have given hundreds of hours of their professional time, an asset we could not have afforded to buy. They are willing to give more, but only if we have the support of the community as a whole.

Summary—Call To Action

We have not made a strong request for funds since 2004 because the expenses of CNW to date have been relatively minor. However, since the FEIS is upon us, we are now facing the need to purchase legal time and expert time at a cost of approximately $250 per hour. This time will be invested in preparing for the Hearing, in providing expert testimony as needed, and in ensuring that we can preserve the R1 zoning in the Wellington area.

1. Please contribute to CNW to support the legal costs our association will incur as we face the Final Environmental Impact Statement and prepare for the Hearing. We’re asking every potentially impacted household to carefully consider how many hours of legal time (at approximately $250/hour) they’d like to cover.
2. Do you have a new neighbor who may not know about CNW? Share this letter with them and encourage them to join CNW and also make a contribution.

Most of us regularly make home improvements, appliance replacements, etc. as an investment in our home. Please consider contributing to CNW another one of those investments to preserve the long-term value of your home. With oversight of all expenditures to date, I can assure you your dollars have been wisely and very prudently spent.

We look forward to seeing you Wednesday night, October 25 at the Woodinville Fire House at _____.

Sincerely,

Fred Green
President
Concerned Neighbors of Wellington
www.wellington-neighborhood.org

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