Take a look at how Bothell residents have come together to preserve their neighborhoods and way of life through the ongoing efforts of SaveBothell. Members of SaveBothell have a different view of progress than incompatible overdevelopment. SaveBothell’s recent newsletter dated July 11, 2024 details their effort to legally challenge the various negative impacts they will suffer as a result of the NorthPoint development. Read more about their efforts below.
SaveBothell is asking for donations to continue their right to be heard.
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Everyone,
Oh my. I am not even sure where to start. The reason you have not heard from me is because details have been changing daily. I have written several newsletter drafts only to have them outdated by the next morning, literally!
I will repeat two things in this newsletter.
The County and NorthPoint are so corrupt and the evidence of that grows day by day.
Secondly, SaveBothell needs finances. From our last request, to pay experts, of $15,000 requested almost $9,000 was given which is wonderful and thank you to all who so generously gave! Beyond those experts, we are now appealing our third round with the County, the Administrative Site Plan, another $1500 fee and hours of time to prepare and have counsel input. There will possibly be a 4th appeal down the road also. I will explain all of this here, so please stay with us, and keep reading. This does AFFECT ALL of us in one way or another.
We appealed along with Eastglen HOA in a Land Use Petition Appeal (LUPA) as you all know. That pre-hearing was changed three times, due to legitimate circumstances, and took place last Friday morning. The ruling was not quite what we hoped for, which is why we will probably need to re-appeal that down the road. That is the 4th appeal I am referring to. The County and NorthPoint lawyers tried to say that both Eastglen and SaveBothell did not have standing in the case. Standing means we have no justifiable reasons for bringing the appeal. The judge ruled that both of us have standing, so that was very important for us to continue all these appeals. On the second point, the County and NP tried to say that we did not complain adequately about the Modification in question, but rather we complained about the lies that got us to the Modification. They went on to say that the appeal should not be heard because the site plan was not approved yet. The judge ruled to agree that for now the Superior Court would dismiss the case until the site plan appeal is heard by the Hearing Examiner. There is some additional costly follow-up on that ruling that we are having to do also, so that we are in a position to come back before Superior Court in the future.
That brings us to the County's and NorthPoint's next move which many of you received a copy of earlier this week, which is their approval of the site plan. Terms of Administrative Site Plan and URDS (Urban Residential Design Standards) are somewhat interchangeable here when referring to the decision the County just approved.
You do need to be aware of their timing. They were simply waiting until the pre-hearing was over to make their next wily moves. We have been told for a few months now that the third-party drainage report was still coming in and the Site Plan decision was still weeks off, and lo and behold both of them came in and permitted and happened all at once since the pre-hearing was now over. Wily is too polite of a term.
So, we have now begun our third appeal which is to appeal this Site Plan. We will now go through the appeal process with the Hearing Examiner on: the last SEPA/MDNS (Mitigated Determination of Non-Significance) which the County previously approved, see newsletter #17; issues from the LUPA appeal from Friday; this new Site Plan appeal, and that might be all for this next round. Whew...
Then, depending on how all of that goes, we may be back in Superior Court on the LUPA.
I know possibly much of this makes your heads swim and eyes glaze over with not quite understanding and feel free to ask questions if you have them.
The bottom line is this takes a massive amount of time which a few of us volunteers have more of, in order to do this work, than many of you. The other bottom line is that we don't have the money to support all of this.
Let me remind you of how this will AFFECT ALL of us:
Eastglen HOA and both Meadowcreek HOA's, as well as the Cottages and Wandering Glen will undoubtedly be affected by insufficient drainage of the development. NP has lied about the soil type in the property and ignored codes that require them to do more and larger drainage catch basins, but the County is complicit with NP to allow all of us to suffer by fudging the facts and building smaller drains to catch all the water from that 53.7% cement/asphalt they will be adding to the hill. That hill absorbs water because of the type of soil that it is, but NP consultants have lied and said it is a different soil type which does not absorb water, so when they build they need to copy what it was like pre-developed and so... smaller drainage because they say it already had run-off and so their building won't be any problem. Head shaking lies! The thing is both the County and NP know they are lying!
ALL of us who already sit in traffic, that being every one that travels 228th or Locust north and south, so pretty much 1000's of people will significantly be impacted by traffic. Again, the notorious County says there is no problem with traffic. When the original NP consultant did their traffic study, not one bit of the study was to the east of the development. I have sat at the Meridian light on a Friday night headed east at 6:30 p.m., so post rush hour and the opposite direction, and the wait at the Meridian light exceeds by two times the County and State requirement for traffic congestion for our area. Again, the County and NP know. Adding 3000-5000 average daily trips on 228th and feeder streets will not be improving these numbers. All the developments along Locust have trouble getting out onto Locust sometimes now, let alone with the effect of 1,500 more cars (if we presume that half of the 3,000-5,000 go west from the development and half go east-those are NP's consultant's figures in their original report). Then, whether it is through Brier proper, up Vine Road, or north on Cypress Way, more traffic will definitely be increased noticeably in those neighborhoods also.
The County and NP know who we are-in fact, NP went to pretty significant lengths to discredit SaveBothell in the LUPA hearing, and their lawyer referenced our numerous contacts with the County. We succeeded early on in alerting all of you and getting 11th Ave. W to not be pushed through to 228th. We can succeed in completing the task here to stop or at least significantly mitigate this development and to hold the County and NP to be honest. We need your help. This costs 10's of thousands of dollars to have legal Motions, Appeals, Court appearances, legal experts who will be testifying in this next round of appeals, all of it costs lots and lots of money. The books are open and public information if anyone is concerned or interested as to where the money is spent, please ask.
I know this is a repeated comment in this newsletter, but our funds are nearing empty, and I do not know how to anticipate what costs will be to now fight two more appeals. This whole package of appeals before the Examiner will include live testimony from our witnesses, as well as legal Counsel speaking on our behalf. I can do all the research along with a few others, but as I have said we cannot pay the bills, nor can we give up.
Too much and too many people are affected by this egregious, dishonest development. As always, none of us are against development, just this one at this time.
This newsletter goes to nearly 400 people. Less than 90 have supported these efforts for 2 years, many being repeat donors. To the other nearly 300, will you please give $100. That would give us $30,000 to fight this next round of appeals, pay expert witnesses for testimony, and win this battle!
Also, remember many employers do matching, and IF any of you know of any grants or rich people or corporations to contact to ask for financial support, please send the ideas/contact information to me.
Thank you again to all who have given.
Thanks for reading this far, and please give.
How to donate:
Online:
https://www.givesendgo.com/G9CYH?sharemsg=display
By check:
SaveBothell
P.O. Box 1591
Bothell, WA 98041
Thank you again for staying in this fight for all of us,
Joan Thomas
SaveBothell Board