A recent planning commission meeting devoted to a $300 million resort proposed just south of Brinnon was heavy on discussion and light on action.

Coming on the heels of a January public hearing that packed the gymnasium at Brinnon Elementary, eight of the commission’s nine members joined a county planner and about 10 audience members Feb. 3 at the Tri-Area Community Center.

Their task: recommend to the board of county commissioners whether to approve, deny or approve with modifications a set of development regulations, or rules, that would govern future development activity on the 256-acre master planned resort property at Black Point, along Hood Canal.

Instead, the commission discussed how best to limit the use of certain fertilizers and pesticides, whether to allow the use of naturally occurring kettle ponds for stormwater and treated wastewater storage, and whether the applicant's business plan would ultimately succeed.

“I'm suspicious of this business plan,” chair Cynthia Koan said, questioning whether the proposed resort would succeed in attracting guests and creating jobs.

“I’m not interested in digging into their business plan,” commissioner Tom Giske said. “What I am interested in, though, is what limitations are going to keep them from being successful, and how do we deal with those?”

Commissioners Giske and Tom Brotherton became frustrated with chair Cynthia Koan, who was not eager to take action on the development rules, but rather welcomed open-ended discussion.

At one point, fellow commissioner Matt Sircely said to Koan, “It’s totally cool to not chair just one vote. It’s totally cool to say, ‘I feel strongly about this; I want somebody else to chair it, somebody who’s got a cool head.’”

Brotherton called the commission's discussion, lead by Koan, “aimless wandering.” Koan, for her part, said she simply was not yet ready to take action.

The commission's next meeting is set for 6:30 p.m. March 2 at the Tri-Area Community Center. See a link to the plan documents with this story on ptleader.com.

Koan and commissioner Lorna Smith questioned the viability of the applicant's business plan in general, while Giske questioned why some commissioners seemed so focused on imposing environmental regulations, potentially to the detriment of the resort's success.

“I feel very strongly that we need to do whatever we can to protect the Hood Canal,” Giske said. “At the same time, I am very concerned that we create a situation that is hopeless on both sides and we wind up with a half-assed development that can't succeed. This process has already reduced the golf course from 18 holes to 9. If I'm a golfer wanting to go to a resort, I'm not going to go to a 9-hole resort. It's just not going to happen. I haven't heard anybody say anything about what's this going to take to be successful. Ask yourselves, what do we have on our hands if it fails?”

Associate planner David Wayne Johnson said the applicant – Garth Mann of Statesman Group – plans to evaluate the success of the first phase before investing in the resort's full buildout.

“That’s really the test: the first phase,” Johnson said. “It’s mixed-use; you’ve got commercial development on the ground floor; you’ve got residential units – 66; you’ve got a family fun center; you’ve got zip-line activity; you’ve got recreational activity. It’s right on the highway, so conceivably you’re going to pick up tourists on [Highway] 101 and they’re going to stop and stay there and enjoy the marina. There will be activities down there. So that’s his plan and I think he’s going to judge whether or not it’s going to be feasible to go ahead with the rest of those subsequent phases based upon that one.”

Commissioner Richard Hull said Mann has shown himself to be a trustworthy steward of the environment.

“It seems to me the applicant has shown intent to be responsible for the environment,” Hull said. “I think the intent is there and I think this developer has operated in good faith in the past, so I have no reason to think he won't continue to operate in good faith.”

Koan said some commissioners seem too willing to trust the applicant with regard to environmental concerns.

“I'm concerned about this idea that this will go forward and we'll be lucky to restrict them in whatever ways that we can and then we'll appeal to their good nature and awesomeness to follow through,” she said. “I am concerned about that way of looking at it. That scares me.”

The property at Black Point was previously zoned for residential use, which Johnson noted would not be subject to the same level of environmental scrutiny as the proposed resort. Brotherton said if the property were to remain residential, private homes would eventually be built along the shoreline there, similar to nearby shoreline areas.

“Our choice is to let him go with the best practices he’s got and put a lot of controls in here on who’s going to watch the environment in the future as they put in a whole big thing, or do nothing,” Brotherton said. “Do nothing looks like it’s probably worse on the environment than trying to control it. At least there’s someone there who knows what they’re doing, trying to do it professionally and use best management practices. Whether you’d like to have it there or not, it’s probably the cleanest environment we’ll see if they succeed and do it well.”

Johnson, who spent the meeting patiently answering the commissioners' clarifying questions, eventually suggested they spend more time with a nearly 300-page environmental impact review finalized in December 2015 ahead of the January public hearing.

“You really need to read the full SEIS to get a full idea of what they’re proposing to do,” Johnson said. “You should have done that. I mean, that was your homework. I don’t want to scold you, but I mean, really. People come and make comments on this project without reading any of the backup, and you just can’t do that and make an informed decision.”

The final environmental review offers a new, scaled down option preferred by Statesman Group, which first applied in January 2006.

That option includes a 9-hole golf course with an associated 3-hole practice course requiring 1 million cubic yards of earthwork for grading, 890 residential units, 56,608 square feet of commercial space with resort-related amenities and 103 acres of natural area preserved.

GOLF COURSE, KETTLE PONDS

Commissioner Sircely said he would like to limit the kinds of fertilizers and pesticides applied to the resort's golf course, which would be built in the second phase of construction.

“Everything has been thought of, mostly,” Sircely said. “But there are some things that haven't been thought of. On a molecular level, it's very possible that the nutrients that get applied to this golf course could end up on a dinner plate in Japan, literally.”

Koan and Smith shared those concerns, with Smith saying she's concerned about potential nitrogen additions to surrounding waters.

Commissioner Mark Jochems said he has been working on boats in the area since 1994.

“These oysters down there in that harbor are extremely prolific,” he said. “It is probably some of the best growing climate in the world, possibly. We want to be real careful to emphasize it should be protected because if you lose it, you lose it.”

The commissioners, partly due to the prodding of Brotherton, resolved to look for an authoritative agency or group on which to base any nutrient restrictions.

“Our problem here is that our concern is with Hood Canal and the shoreline, and most golf courses in Kansas don't care about that,” Brotherton said of generic best management practices. “So we want the rules that apply to this heavily fished area. If we put something in the regulations it has to be something authoritative. It has to be from someone who knows what they're doing and it's got to be something that requires very little maintenance on our part.”

Toward the end of the meeting, the applicant's civil engineer, Craig Peck, offered clarification. He said the million cubic yards of earth to be removed would be used to create a dam along the property's south side before the cliffs, stopping runoff from running into Hood Canal.

“So your concerns about pesticides, fertilizers, whatever running off the golf course into Hood Canal will not happen,” Peck said. “It is physically not possible because everything is turned back inside, which was a requirement of the initial approval of this MPR.”

Treated wastewater and stormwater are to be directed into a 12-acre kettle pond, which is a depression in the earth left behind after a glacier melts.

Jochems said he recently visited that kettle pond and would like to have an anthropologist determine whether it has religious or cultural significance before the county agrees to let the applicant use it as a holding area for treated wastewater and stormwater, which would then be used for irrigation.

“At the very least, it's a very unique glacial topographic peculiarity,” Jochems said. “It's also a very large aquifer recharge area. It's so unique, regardless of indigenous people or not, I'd like to see it saved.”

Johnson said preserving that kettle pond would send the applicant back to the drawing board in a major way.

“As far as the water budget, it's a very important, key element in the whole water scheme of the resort,” Johnson said.

Jochems said he understands and sympathizes with the applicant's need to manage water.

“I know it's a major fallback and regroup,” he said. “We also know the whole [Environmental Impact Statement] is a concept, but we also know that when these projects start happening things can change.”

Roma Call of the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe said that tribe's anthropologist would be glad to look at the kettle pond. She also encouraged the commission to hold off on approving the development rules until the tribe has a chance to offer further comment.

“The kettle ponds are very rare,” Call said. “They have particular species of plants and amphibians in them that you don’t find in other places. There’s also religious and spiritual significance, cultural significance. We’re not really comfortable with one of the kettle ponds being used as a stormwater pond and don’t feel that that’s an adequate mitigation for the wetland impacts.”