Stiff pushback against decision to allow Mount Rainier-area resort to keep moving
A recent hearing examiner’s decision regarding a massive resort planned just a few miles outside of Mount Rainier National Park is receiving calls for reconsideration from a local environmental group and the county.
A separate reconsideration also was filed by the project’s attorney, not over the decision itself but for clarification on when preliminary site development could begin.
The $200 million project would be 11 miles from the park’s Nisqually entrance on state Route 706, halfway between Elbe and Ashford. Plans call for a 420-acre resort with a 270-room hotel with restaurants, two indoor and four outdoor tennis courts, a heated swimming pool, spa and fitness center.
Plans also call for a 22,000-square-foot conference center, an 18-hole golf course, a sewer plant to accommodate the new development and 325 housing units.
Those backing the development contend it would bring jobs and economic growth.
The project also has attracted fierce opposition from nearby residents and beyond, including an online petition calling for the conditional-use permit to be revoked. The petition has garnered more than 1,000 signatures from Washington state residents and those in other states.
There’s also a Facebook page, Citizens Against Park Junction Resort.
On Nov. 21, the Tahoma Audubon Society filed a request for reconsideration of the recent hearing examiner’s decision.
The Nov. 14 decision by Pierce County Hearing Examiner Steven Causseaux declared developers of the Mount Rainier Resort at Park Junction should be given the opportunity to come into code compliance. The hearing examiner also warned if benchmarks were not met with clear signs of progress, the county should consider revocation of the project’s conditional-use permit.
Tahoma Audubon has stood firm in opposing the project, noting in a news release accompanying its filing: “The examiner was right to conclude that the applicant has taken ‘an inordinate amount of time’ to meet the county’s conditions for the project. The society thinks that the permit should be revoked entirely.
“In addition, the Society asks the examiner to impose specific deadlines in February and April of 2020 involving stormwater and wetlands issues — and to declare that failure to meet these two deadlines will cause automatic revocation of the project’s original conditional use permit.”
The group’s attorney, Robert Mack, wrote in the official filing: “A student who repeatedly fails to pass tests is expelled. A lawyer who repeatedly fails to meet court deadlines is fined. An employee who repeatedly doesn’t show up for work is dismissed. This applicant’s failure to comply with previous requirements should have consequences.”
The group said it agreed with Causseaux’s finding “that the project’s backers have failed to make ‘reasonable and consistent progress’ in meeting conditions for a conditional use permit originally approved 19 years ago.”
The group noted that the decision itself offered “clear grounds” for revocation, with the applicant, Park Junction LLC, not yet meeting permit requirements in regard to water, as well as wetlands buffers.
“More than two years ago the county’s planning staff, citing a lack of progress, recommended against granting more time for compliance,” the group said in its statement.
Causseaux’s decision stated: “The examiner recommends that Pierce County not take action at present to revoke the Park Junction CUP, but allow the applicant an opportunity to meet proposed milestones set forth in Exhibit 32.”
Exhibit 32 in the 27-page decision is described in the index as “Tahoma Audubon Society Post-Hearing Brief,” but the decision also stated: “The applicant now provides measurable benchmarks going forward. Assuming compliance with said benchmarks and any other time lines imposed by Pierce County, the project will come into compliance.”
On Nov. 22, the county told The News Tribune that the decision actually should have referenced Exhibit 31, “Applicant’s Post-Hearing Supplemental Brief,” which presented proposed milestones set forth by the applicant.
That correction also was included in the county’s reconsideration request.
Tahoma Audubon took exception to the applicant’s milestones.
“Unless amended, the decision could allow the applicant yet another reprieve,” the group contended. “The decision endorses new deadlines suggested by the applicants themselves.”
Pierce County filed its own request for reconsideration Nov. 25, focusing on the milestones and clarifications to regulations. In an email accompanying the filing, Ty Booth, Pierce County planner, asked to “keep the balance of the milestone issue open until Feb. 18, 2020, so that the county and applicant have time to meet and/or develop a more specific list of milestones including, but not limited to, actual construction dates for buildings and related infrastructure.”
Booth added: “If there is disagreement between the applicant/county on one or more milestones, the areas of disagreement shall also be presented to the examiner on or before Feb. 18 for resolution. The examiner may then determine that the hearing be re-opened to resolve any disagreements should they exist.”
Booth also made clear that “agreement to work on milestones prior to Feb. 18 does not mean the county will not seek revocation of the conditional use permit.”
“While the county is not seeking revocation at this time, it reserves the right to do so in the future.”
Park Junction LLC filed its own request for a clarification to one of its requirements from the original conditional-use permit.
The Nov. 14 decision states: “... a condition of approval prohibits any site development to occur prior to the availability of utilities (primarily sewer and water). The purpose of the condition is to ensure that no road grading or other activities would disturb the site until such time as utility service became available.”
William Lynn, attorney representing Park Junction LLC, wrote in his request for reconsideration: “The Applicant has always interpreted ‘available’ in this context to mean that the utility plans are approved, but not that every nut and bolt on a waste water treatment plant for example has been installed.”
“For example, one of the elements of the milestones was the preliminary development of a wetland mitigation site. The whole idea of that was to get the mitigation site up and functioning this spring before other wetland impacts occurred. The same milestones show the sewer plant construction to be further in the future just because of the time involved.
“Likewise, the milestones contemplated completion of the Phase 1 site development and wetland review process in the early part of 2020 with construction later in the spring. That would not be possible if actual site development had to be delayed for the time it will take to do final design and construction of the waste water treatment plant.”
Sheryl Rhinehart, spokeswoman for the county planning department, told The News Tribune via email,“The hearing examiner will typically issue one decision that addresses all the requests for reconsideration. We don’t know when to expect the decision — it may not come out until early next year.”
This story was originally published November 27, 2019 at 6:00 AM.
