The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAITSBURG – Warren Land Company cleared hurdle number one after receiving a conditional preliminary plat approval for the proposed Whoopemup Meadows subdivision at a Feb. 19 Waitsburg City Council public record meeting.

The council, with member K.C. Kuykendall absent, voted unanimously to approve the preliminary plat with conditions as recommended by City Attorney Jared Hawkins, rather than disapproving, as recommended by the Waitsburg Planning Commission. The 114-unit, 50-acre subdivision, to be phased in over as many as 20 years, will lie on the northeast corner of Waitsburg, just east of the Port of Walla Walla’s light industrial park.

Thursday’s meeting was in compliance with a city ordinance requiring Waitsburg’s city council to hold a public meeting to publicly discuss any preliminary plat recommendations received from the planning commission. Waitsburg’s planning commission had previously issued a recommendation that the council disapprove the plat due to a lack of information.

Mayor Walt Gobel opened by clarifying that the meeting was a closed record hearing and that no input would be accepted from the audience. Councilman Marty Dunn addressed developers Gene and Mary Warren, who were accompanied by their attorney, Mike Hubbard, and asked why the requested information had not been submitted to the planning commission.

Gene Warren said they had never received a formal motion from the commission. Mary said that they had fulfilled the preliminary plat requirements and the studies mentioned, typical for final plats, were time and money intensive. “A traffic study could take three to eight months, for example. We can’t spend all that time and money then have them say no. If we’d known it had been required before, we would have thought about it and gotten bids on completing those studies,” she said.

Attorney Hubbard said that the information requested by the planning commission was design standards and improvements, to be considered after the preliminary plat approval.

“We need to get past this first hurdle – get the preliminary plat done – then we’ll get into all of your codes, complete with engineering requirements and definitions that have to be met in the final plat like these folks are prepared to do. That’s why we’re asking you to either approve this plat or approve with conditions so we can keep moving forward,” he said.

Mayor Gobel addressed the council saying that they had a recommendation from both the city attorney and Hubbard to approve the plat with conditions, but he expressed concern at going against the planning commission’s recommendation to disapprove.

City Clerk Randy Hinchliffe said he believed the planning commission didn’t approve with conditions because they were afraid the developers could interpret a request for more information to be satisfied simply by the submission (not the approval) of that information. He also stated that the council had final say and had the right to agree or disagree with the commission’s recommendation.

In response to a question posed by council member Deb Callahan, Hinchliffe said that the preliminary plat approves the design as it stands. “The developer can go forward and put in the infrastructure, but they can’t sell a lot until the final plat is approved,” he said.

In a Jan. 26 letter to the developers, the planning commission requested four pieces of additional information: consideration of cost-sharing for a block fence between the industrial park and the subdivision, consideration of a pedestrian easement walkway along Millrace Road to Garden Street, submission of a storm water management plan and a traffic impact analysis as related to Taggart and Millrace Roads.

The council struck the first item after Gobel shared that he, Kuykendall and Hinchliffe had met with Port of Walla Walla representatives and did not agree the fence was necessary. They felt the planned park and drainage area was sufficient and that homeowners could build their own fence or plant trees if they chose. The second item was amended to request that the developers look at an existing easement between the industrial park and the railroad. The last two conditions were retained.

“We have a good idea of what needs to be done and we don’t want to belabor it. We want to move on and get it done,” said Gobel prior to the council vote. The move to approve with the noted conditions was made by Deb Callahan, seconded by Karl Newell and approved unanimously by all present.