Long-planned housing development in East Pierce trades hands for just over $7M
A 27-lot site set for new single family homes has sold to a familiar home-builder brand.
A Kirkland-based LLC doing business as Texas-based home builder D.R. Horton on July 15 purchased the lots for the planned Scarlett’s Landing site, which is southeast of the intersection of 144th Street East and 58th Avenue East and east of Canyon Road East in the Summit View area.
The sale price was just under $7.2 million, sold by Sager Development of Tacoma, according to the excise tax sales affidavit listed with the county.
The development plan was originally proposed with filings in spring 2022. The most recent plat filings were filed June 20. Plans call for 27 single-family homes on the lots, four homes per acre.
A media representative for the home builder did not respond to a request for comment.
Donna Rhea is an associate planner in Development Services-Land Use with Pierce County Planning & Public Works and serves as the county contact for the project. In response to questions, she told The News Tribune via email, “The plat of Scarlett’s Landing is completed for the most part.”
Still to come, Rhea noted, is an irrigation plan, “and the application will have all its approval for the final.”
The project first received approval from the Mid-County Advisory Commission in September 2022, subject to compliance with staff’s recommended conditions of approval.
It later received a determination of nonsignificance from Pierce County in May 2023, meaning the county determined the development would not have a probable significant adverse impact on the environment.
The project then gained approval from the hearing examiner in July 2023 with conditions that included, among other items, an emphasis on drainage control accounting for a 25-year and also 100-year flood event.
An initial project review for Mid-County Advisory Commission noted that of the two original parcels later subdivided for the project, “A flood hazard indicator exists on both parcels; however, Floodplain Services has determined that no development is taking place within a flood hazard area.”
Wetland buffers are planned for the east and west sides of the site with the lots and roadways designed down the middle. The site previously was two parcels, with the north parcel serving as a pasture and the south parcel with a two-story home and support buildings, with the land “generally cresting toward the central portion of the property,” according to an engineer’s report filed in June.
“As a result of this topographic feature and soil conditions underlying the project area, wetland areas have developed along the western and eastern margins of the subject properties,” the report stated. A survey outlined the wetland areas, “with 50-to-80-foot wetland buffers already being incorporated into the preliminary site plan to address these features.”
According to the hearing examiner’s decision, a copy of which is online with other development documents, a development engineer testified at the hearing that he was “aware of the 58th (Avenue) flooding issues, and required the applicant to prepare a detailed, downstream analysis.”
The decision added, “The downstream analysis showed deficiencies in the existing drainage system as well as a lack of maintenance. The engineers will correct the downstream deficiencies, which should eliminate the flooding on 58th Avenue.”
Along with the wetland buffers, a stormwater detention pond also is part of the plan.
The drainage plan, according to the development engineer, “meets all county requirements and will allow the safe passage of a 25-year storm event. The stormwater facilities will detain a 100-year event and will improve the drainage for the area,” the decision stated.
The most recent filings on the project are tied to performance monitoring described as “to construct minor improvements on 58th Avenue East for Scarlett’s Landing.”
Performance monitoring is also listed for the construction of public roads and storm drainage for the site.
