Courts give Puyallup another victory against warehouse developer to collect fees
Another court ruling in the continual cases between Puyallup and a Shaw Road warehouse developer has sided with the city this month.
Pierce County Superior Judge Shelly Speir determined Nov. 6 that Viking JV LLC must pay the required $388,000 in park impact fees.
The city charges developers an impact fee to help pay for open space and parks. City Attorney Joe Beck said the formula is based on square footage of a building, the projected number of employees and visitors, and other factors.
Because Viking never provided proof of how many people would be working at the 450,000-square-foot warehouse, they couldn’t argue that any adjustment needed to occur, Judge Speir said.
Viking argues the calculation used was inaccurate because the fee assumed that an employee at the warehouse would have the same availability as a resident to visit the parks during work.
Beck said the ruling was a relief.
“In order to appeal these things, the developer has to pay fees upfront. That’s money we would have had to refund,” he said. “It’s a great relief, especially with the financial situation for cities right now.”
Viking’s attorney, Reuben Schutz, said they disagree with the ruling. The number of employees at Viking is estimated to be between 40 and 60, but Schutz said the city wants to charge them for a potential 450 employees.
“We are disappointed by the ruling as the impact fee is disproportionate,” he told The News Tribune.
The lawsuit is one of two between Viking and the city. In October, a second dispute over stormwater fees provided the city a partial victory.
A Pierce County Superior Court Judge ruled Viking had to pay $571,000 to hook up to the city’s stormwater system.
The stormwater pipes feed runoff water from the once Van Lierop daffodil bulb farm into the Puyallup River.
“They took 20.4 acres that previously absorbed water and turned it into an impervious surface. They should pay a fair share of stormwater utility,” Beck said.
Viking said they intended to build a storm system for the warehouse and to add a new outflow pipe connecting the city system to the Puyallup River, Lynn said, but Puyallup is requiring Viking to include additional, oversized pipes for water coming from other properties.
Viking’s parent company, Michaelson, also owns the Knutson Farm property next door, where a seven-warehouse project has stalled. Last year, Puyallup was awarded the rights to an environmental impact study before the project will move ahead.
The court cases are expected to continue. Viking appealed last month’s decision in the stormwater impact fee on Thursday.
Beck said he feels Viking is filing “frivolous lawsuits.”
“There are other things we could be attending to, but unfortunately we don’t have a choice,” he said. “To me, It feels like Viking has taken a scorched earth approach to bring a burden of litigation to get the city to fold on some things.”
Schutz said Viking is weighing all its options in the park impact fees case.
