Developer Schwandt Emails Blaine City Council
Wayne Schwandt, the developer of Sea Smoke and the proposed Semiahmoo Highlands, sent this email to the Blaine City Council. He implies that the City does use 3rd party reviewers for infrastructure projects and proceeds with the statement that “The projects that I have been involved with routinely have our Preliminary Stormwater Plans
reviewed by a third-party engineering firm …”.
We respectfully point out that if the city has an independent 3rd party engineering specialist review plans submitted by developers, we were not able to find any examples of that in the public records.
There is an obvious and big difference between a review sponsored, and paid for, by a developer, where the developer is the client and only one who gets to see the results, compared with a review by an independent professional engineer engaged by the City.
Mr. Schwandt further states that a moratorium to fix a broken process is “…not warranted and most likely counter productive”. We agree that such a moratorium may not be “productive” for a developer but it is the only way the City can safeguard the interests of the residents of Blaine. A responsibility the City Councilors were elected to fulfill.
Fire Department Sees Problems with Serving Expanded Population
Bruce Ansell, Chairman of North Whatcom Fire and Rescue has written a letter to the Blaine City Council, copying Whatcom County Council and Executive, raising concerns about its ability to maintain service levels with all this proposed development. They are currently operating at close to maximum capacity.
Ansell indicates that current fee arrangements are insufficient to increase capacity needed to maintain current service levels for the larger population after all the development.
The City’s (and the County’s) planning process should deal with the fee increases needed and who will pay these fees – the developers or the residents - and whether the cost is paid up front or over time. The residents and taxpayers have a right to know what the consequences of these actions (or non-actions) are!
Blaine’s Sewer System is Short on Capacity
And if you thought that the cost of Fire and Rescue was all, you would be wrong. Read the memo from Michael Jones, the City Manager at the time, outlining sewer capacity issues in East Blaine. And at that time only a small portion of the expansion of West Blaine was known.
Sewer capacity and fees are a complicated matter, but three simple conclusions seem clear:
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Blaine’s existing sewer system needs extensive and costly repairs
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Sewer fees in Blaine are already very high
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Fees will have to increase still more to pay for the repairs and needed expansion
Who will be on the hook and for how much? Developers or residents? The City owes its residents answers to these questions BEFORE it approves all this expansion.
And This May Only Be The Beginning Of It!
The Board of the Semiahmoo Residents Association (SRA), the homeowners association of Semiahmoo has published a position paper. The association states that it is supportive of well managed development, but opposes unmanaged development. It goes on to list a number of comprehensive (regional) studies that it believes should be done before further approvals are taken up by the City and County. Also, existing stormwater issues associated with the development of Sea Smoke should first be addressed before any other development in that neighborhood are considered.
Please read the position paper here or directly on the SRA's website with this link.
If you live in Central or East Blaine or in the Birch Bay area, all this new development does affect your neighborhood too. Scroll down for an overview of all the development in the pipeline. The table is from a presentation by the City's Department of Community Planning Services dated May 4, 2022.
For a larger image
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A large part of the proposed new development lies directly uphill from several Birch Bay neighborhoods.
The current infrastructure of the City of Blaine does not have enough capacity to service this much expansion. It will have to be expanded requiring large, up-front investment. The cost of this expansion will ultimately have to be borne by the residents and taxpayers of Blaine unless the City Council puts an equitable cost sharing mechanism with the developers in place. As of now there is no such arrangement.
Please write a letter or email to the City and/or County to express your concerns. If you live in a neighborhood with a homeowners association, please ask your HOA board to study the matter and let the City and/or County Council know its position.
It Affects Us All !
Semiahmoo Highlands Development Advances To The Next Step
On June 10 the City f Blaine granted the developer of Semiahmoo Highlands an exemption from the Critical Area Review in order to do geotechnical exploration in order to complete the preliminary design for the stormwater system. Such exploration is also necessary for the design of the plat that will be submitted to the City for preliminary approval.
The layout of the plat has to avoid disturbance of so-called critical areas. The most common ones in our areas are wetlands. In this case there are a number of inconsistencies between the official wetland map of the City and the one being used by the developer. Brian Berg, a retired architect, noticed these discrepancies and wrote a letter to the City pointing them out.
It is important that the discrepancies are resolved before the design of the plat is completed. Brian notes that once that point has been reached, developers will typically resist any changes because of cost of a redesign and the time required to do it.
Read Brian's letter here and take a look at a comparison of the city map and the one used by the developer.
Process City Uses to Approve Developments Is Flawed
Do you know how the City evaluates and approves developments? It has to follow what is prescribed in the Blaine Municipal Code. That process may have been OK in times past, but it falls well short of what is needed to safeguard the needs of today. If the code no longer reflects the needs of the community it is the responsibility of the Council to change the code. Only the Council can do this!
Being a small community, the City does not have enough personnel with the skills to do a proper job of managing the technical aspects of a development. Multiply that by the large number of developments in the pipeline, all at the same time. Of the other small jurisdictions that find themselves in a similar situation some have chosen to get help from the County or State for the technical evaluation. Blaine has not.
Blaine does not have a comprehensive stormwater plan. Such a plan is required by the state and is key in determining whether the stormwater system has enough capacity to handle all these developments seeking approval at the same time. Also, the wetlands map in use by the City is several years old. The state requires use of an up to date one.
These and other flaws are described in a letter to the City Council and Planning Commission. It asks that the City declare a moratorium on approvals until its process has been fixed
Read the letter here.
Proposed Development of Sea Smoke Tract D
The developer(s) of Sea Smoke have submitted plans to the City of Blaine to develop Sea Smoke Tract D with 8 single family homes. No date has been set yet for the required public meeting. You can submit comments to the City only until the end of business on June 9 by emailing them to Stacy Clauson, the Director of Community Development for the City.
Click here for a map showing the location of Tract D.
We are not opposed to all development, as long as it is properly managed will not cause serious problems that are difficult and costly to fix. Especially when that cost must be borne by the residents and taxpayers of Blaine.
There are significant issues with this proposal. These issues are detailed in two key letters that have been submitted to the City as comments. Please read the letters here and here.
Adding more development will increase impervious surface and put a greater burden on an already undersized stormwater system, potentially causing repeated and damaging flooding downstream in Boundary Ridge.
The proposed layout has a shared driveway that is so close to one of the proposed homes that it is in conflict with city code.
These, and some other issues must be addressed before approval can be considered by the City. Please send your comments by email to Stacy Clauson, the Director of Community Planning of the City. Change will only happen when we all demand it. In this situation silence is acquiescence.
PETITION Submitted
The petition was submitted to the Blaine City Council and the Whatcom County Council. It waas signed by 455 people who live in the City of Blaine or in unincorporated Whatcom County.
Read the cover letter HERE.
Inverness Development
Neighborhood Meeting
Harbor Custom Development has announced a neighborhood meeting for May 25 at 7:00 PM at the the Blakely Room of the Semiahmoo Resort to introduce their plans to develop the Inverness project. You can attend in person or via Zoom.
Read the announcement here. It also tells you how to get the Zoom link to attend the meeting remotely.
Inverness is a 37 acre parcel planned for 67 single family homes. It is located across Semiahmoo Parkway from the Horizon Entrance and stretches from Snow Goose Lane to Shintaffer Road. (Click here or on the icon on the right for a map of the location.
Location of Inverness
(Click for full size)
Letter to City of Blaine and Whatcom County
A letter was sent to the Manager of the City of Blaine and the Whatcom County Executive with copies to the respective Planning Departments stating the concerns of many residents about the potential impacts of the many developments in the approval process and being newly proposed in a brief period of time, within West Blaine and adjacent areas of Whatcom County.
The residents are not opposed to all development. There are significant concerns however, that unmanaged, rapid growth could cause erosion and flooding during big storms unless adequate infrastructure is in place.
Sewer capacity, both storm water and sanitary, must be studied to determine whether there is enough capacity for these large expansions. The State requires a comprehensive storm water plan to be in place. Will the roads be able to accommodate the big increase in traffic due to the large population growth? Will there be enough first responders to serve the big jump in population?
These are some of the most important issues, but by no means the only ones that must be studied before more approvals are given.
Read the letter here!
The results of the petition will be presented to the City and County Councils in the near future.
Better Maps
Several of our visitors made us aware that they could not find where the proposed development is to be located. On the left and right are two maps that are annotated to show the location of Semiahmoo Highlands relative to some landmarks and other neighborhoods.
Click on the image to enlarge for better viewing.
If a full size image of the map does not open in a separate window, it is blocked by a pop-up blacker. Unblock pop-ups for this site or go to the Documents page and click on the maps for a full size image)
Where is Semiahmoo Highlands?
A number of site visitors have asked where Semiahmoo Highlands is planned. Phase I of the development is adjacent to the West side of Semiahmoo Parkway, approximately across from the entrance to the golf club.
This article in the Northern Light also has information you may want to read.
This article in Cascadia Daily News shows a better map that will help you locate the proposed development
When there is more news to report you will find it here.
Two is Better Than One!
If you have already signed the petition, thank you!
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