The Binary Circumstance

This is probably old news at this point as I received a letter from the Bainbridge Island Office of the Hearing Examiner dated January 9th when I was away.

The decision (PDF) is available here.

The Hearing Examiner found that several of the conditions that the city placed on the short-platting of the Christensen property were unreasonable, including the requirement that the Christensens pay to extend Kallgren Road through to Day Road. So it looks like Kallgren Road will remain a defacto dead-end for the time being.

The city still owns an easement to connect the two roads but they would have to pay for it with tax dollars. That seems like a long-shot at this point, given that the neighborhood was almost universally opposed to the extension.

The decision is 31 pages long but here are the important paragraphs:

13. It was an error to have imposed the requirement that Kallgren Road be extended to connect to Day Road without having made an individualized determination that it was necessary and appropriate in these circumstances. The environmental impacts of road construction, as well as the traffic and other continuing impacts detrimental to the neighborhood, were not taken into account. Neither policies nor facts dictate that “connectivity” automatically trumps “character”. It was a mistake to not consider the individual circumstances to inform this decision. Here, the emergency response time to the new lots would be adequate, easily within the Fire Department’s standard. The response time to the neighborhood is, and would remain, adequate; other residents would not be negatively affected nor would a bad situation be made worse. Similarly, there are no traffic safety or service level problems created or aggravated that would require mitigation with the road extension. Access as proposed is consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and maintains adequate emergency response time. Condition 5b should be eliminated.
14. Eliminating the requirement to make Kallgren Road a through street should help maintain existing neighborhood character and would relieve the owner of what would have been an undue and disproportionate burden. However, in the future if an LID or similar mechanism is established to enhance Kallgren Road with “non-motorized” features, the lots created by this short plat would surely benefit and should contribute their fair share to that effort. The Applicant should provide a no protest agreement to that end.

My congratulations to the Christensens and those of my neighbors who fought City Hall and won.

For more on this months-long ordeal, read through my Kallgren Road posts. I said all along that demanding that a private property owner pay for this extension was unlawful and unreasonable.  Yet our city government wasted our tax dollars trying to do it anyway.
Also see The Bainbridge Buzz for an excellent history of the whole process.

From the Bainbridge Island Review:

The path toward resolving the conflict over Kallgren Road is a few miles longer.
Residents and a developer last week appealed a city decision that would require a connection of Kallgren to Day Road, if plans go forward to build homes at Kallgren’s dead end.
“Unfortunately, we had to go this far,” said Rebecca Robins, a member of the newly formed Kallgren Road Preservation Society. “We had hoped there was an amicable way, but there was no other choice. We exhausted all our other options – petitions, talks with the mayor, public works, the City Council, the planning department.
“We didn’t get anywhere, so it’s inevitable that we had to appeal.”
The city’s Department of Planning and Community Development issued a decision earlier this month to make approval of a short plat amendment at the road’s end contingent upon a connection to Day Road.

[…]

But the residents’ appeal contends that no detailed traffic study calls for a new connection at Kallgren Road.
They also cite portions of the city’s Comprehensive Plan that support the preservation of the island’s rural character and quiet residential neighborhoods, while focusing new growth and road development in the Winslow core.
In addition, Kallgren residents say a connection to Day Road, an island thoroughfare, would increase safety risks as more vehicles traverse their neighborhood.
Christensen’s appeal goes further, insisting that the city’s approval requirements do not match the size and scope of the proposed developments.
The city’s requirement for a fire access line, and the addition of a new fire hydrant, are “unnecessary, duplicative, excessive, and disproportionate, and therefore, illegal,” according to Christensen’s attorney.
Christensen’s appeal also states that the city should pay the estimated $30,000 needed for the connection and road improvements the city would require.

I received a notice today from the City of Bainbridge Island, stating that the Christensen short-plat was conditionally approved.

From a cursory review of the documents it appears that all of the conditions for approval are the same as before and may in fact include additional demands like access for children to the Wilkes School across the property.

The Christensens must give the city more easements, including 50′ radii at both Day and Madison as well as the future intersection of Kallgren and Madison. I assume they are looking forward to the time when the entire island will be one big subdivision and roundabouts will be needed at these intersections.

The Christensens must pay for the road, but have two years to construct it. If they decide to postpone construction they must post a bond that guarantees the money will be available to build the road later and an assurance that if the road specifications change, they will fork over the extra cash.

I don’t know how they know that children will be living in any structures that are built on these lots since no plans have been submitted for construction but I guess they’ve got a crystal ball down there at City Hall.

It appears that the concerns of the Christensens and the residents of Kallgren fell upon deaf ears. This is not surprising. Why listen when you don’t have to?

The decision may be appealed. I also suspect there will be lawsuits over this.

It think it’s ironic that one of the newly-announced candidates for Mayor (I can’t remember which but I think it was the CPA who’s running) said that he was concerned that Darlene Kordonowy too often puts the City in the position of being sued. As I explained in my previous post, Dump Darlene, she certainly seems to encourage them.

While at the Bite of Seattle yesterday, some guy from a group called Direct Democracy handed me a leaflet. It spoke directly to the problems we’ve been having with city government on Bainbridge.

Washington State Constitution - Article I Section I

Political Power: All political power is inherent in the people, the governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are established to protect and maintain individual rights.[emphasis mine]

RCW 42.17.251 (1992cl39)

The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the instruments that they have created. The public records subdivision of this chapter shall be liberally construed and its exemptions narrowly construed to promote this public policy.

I wonder if anybody down there at City Hall has ever read the Washington State Constitution, which I’m quite sure the elected officials have been sworn to uphold.