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11/24/2008: "No Decision On Buck Annexation"

It took over four hours of testimony that ranged from the informed and helpful, to personal attacks, but in the end the Town of Friday Harbor Council decided the process would be best served if they took up the matter again at their December 18 meeting.

The Buck annexation has been controversial from the start. , and that was reflected by a standing room only crowd that filled the Grange hall Thursday evening to comment and listen to testimony on the proposal.

Local attorney Bill Weissinger succinctly stated one of the main objection to the project when he testified “the issue is not affordable housing, the issue is not even the annexation, the issue is who pays that $7 million dollars” for the two phases of the affordable housing portion of the project.




The Home Trust would like to develop a portion of the Buck property for affordable housing, and the rest would be developed by the Buck family for residential homes to be sold in the open market.

Weissinger said that “one third of the project is affordable housing, two-thirds is market rate housing;” and that, he added, means that a total of 120 units “will bring in some place between $15 to $ 25 million dollars” to the private party developers of the property

Paul Stokes, the managing partner of the Pacific Synergy Group LLC has completed the infrastructure of a development in town called Friday Cove, and he took everyone off guard when he announced that his group was willing to sell their development of improved land to the trust, and this would allow 80 residential units to be constructed by the trust, without having to come up with $7 million dollars -an amount estimated -and contested by the Trust- to allow the Buck proposal to move forward.

In an interview after he spoke, Stokes told the Guardian that he had never heard of a developer being given a free ride on the cost of developing property, but if they purchased Friday Cove, that would be a win-win for them, and for affordable housing; but when asked about his statement, Nancy DeVaux responded that “they just want to sell their project.”

Weissinger spoke twice, and he lighted the mood when he testified that the affordable housing proposal “is kind of like a woman hitchhiking on the road, showing her leg and trying to get the guy to stop, he stops, and then this big bruiser -her boyfriend- steps out of the bushes -that big bruiser boyfriend is the seven million dollars! So now you got to give a ride to the boyfriend; all the guy wanted was the girl to ride with.” His comments were met with general laughter -which increased when he off-handily noted “ I feel the same way…well my wife is not here, but…”

Charles Richardson is a board member of the Home Trust, and he told the Council they should not feel pressured, because while there is “urgency here, I don’t think there is an emergency.” He added that he applauded the hard work of the staff and “I think we have the chance to work some things out… I hope you would urge (the Town) to work with us on this proposal…to do what everybody what’s to do, which it have houses that families can afford, whether it is called affordable housing or not, I don’t really care... but it important to have houses that families can afford.”

The question of need was the driving force for the main argument for the Town to approve the Buck annexation, but the counter argument was that it is not needed in order to supply the units required by GMA, or by the Town Comprehensive Plan. Kelle’ Wilson read a letter into the record, in which she stated “Quite frankly the discussion should end here. I understand why the Council designated this property to be within the UGA (Urban Growth Area), but I do NOT understand why it would consider annexing in property that in not currently needed.” Her comments were disputed by other speakers for the Home Trust -some of whom were expecting to move into the new homes if the annexation was approved.

Richardson then seemed to attempt to counter some of the personal attracts and insulting comments made by a couple of those who spoke, when he stated “I would not question the motives of anyone here, or anyone who spoke tonight.”

Town Prosecuting attorney Don Eaton advised the council members that they were not required to annex all of the Buck property. They could accept all of it, or any part of it.

Some on the council said they agreed with a point made by the Trust speakers that if the Town took “into account the low impact development of the project… this would help to mitigate the impacts on the town infrastructure;” and this could lessen the requests for major financial contributions to upgrade utilities that are currently required from all developers.

As the hour grew late, and the last call for speakers when unanswered, the council members seemed to be hesitant to move forward, and after a few false starts they agreed to end the meeting and then take it up again in December, when staff would be able to respond to some of the issues that had been raised by the testimony.