Published March 2004

Letter to the editor
Island Crossing rezone: Land’s fate should be governed by GMA

This letter to the editor from 1000 Friends of Washington was originally addressed to columnist Tom Hoban, whose February column focused on the issue of annexing land at Island Crossing and I-5 by the city of Arlington, a site proposed for a new auto dealership by Dwayne Lane Chevrolet.

Tom,
Your recent column in the Snohomish County Business Journal throws a significant amount of demagoguery onto the debate on this issue. I’m hoping that this was actually unintentional on your part and is instead just a matter of being misinformed. I sincerely say this not as criticism (though I understand it’s probably hard not to take it as such), as the Growth Management Act is a complex statutory scheme that takes some time working with to begin to grasp.

As the legal director for the most visible group opposing the county’s actions on the Dwayne Lane issue, I conclude that your reference to the “no growth types” is meant to include 1000 Friends of Washington. …1000 Friends has never been anti-growth or no growth. … I would imagine that both you and I could agree that there are some types and forms of growth that are bad, that some locations should be protected from urban growth, and that some urban growth is inappropriate in some locations.

That we disagree on the application of these principles in specific situations doesn’t make them suddenly untrue. It does make it disingenuous for you to use inflammatory terms like “no growth types” and “enviro-terrorist.” It brings nothing to the debate, as would a reasoned discussion of some of the issues. … Neither 1000 Friends nor myself have any personal ax to grind against Dwayne Lane. Indeed, from what I know, my impression is that he’s a model citizen and upstanding businessman, as you state.

The issue, though, is whether land that has been designated at least since 1983 by the county as agricultural resource land should now suddenly be paved over because of the wishes of a single landowner. The issue is whether urban development is appropriate in the floodplain of the Stillaguamish River when such development will almost certainly cause adverse impacts on surrounding and downstream landowners by way of more frequent flooding and higher flood levels when it does occur. The issue is whether any local government can consign vast acreage of undeveloped resource land and floodplain for urban development when there’s ample land available within existing urban growth areas. The issue is whether the Growth Management Act means anything at all in this debate.

There are issues at play that are of statewide significance and are larger than Snohomish County and Arlington. Of course, there are also issues here that do directly affect Arlington and the county, as you pointed out. One that you didn’t point out is the high cost to Arlington of extending sewer, water, fire protection, police protection, schools and other services to Island Crossing, and maintaining the same.

In the end though, it’s not 1000 Friends or anyone else that is standing in Dwayne Lane’s way on this. It’s the Growth Management Act, a state law that local governments must comply with. … The GMA requires local governments to … plan carefully for growth and not allow it willy-nilly in a way that might benefit a single individual or small group, effectively stealing from the community as a whole and future generations. In this particular case, Snohomish County has acted as if it is above the law. Now a democratically created tribunal will decide if such action should be allowed to stand.

John Zilavy,
Legal Director 1000 Friends of Washington
Seattle

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