SEQUIM — Clallam County commissioners will take public testimony Jan. 23 on settling a five-year-old legal wrangle over King’s Way Foursquare Church’s plans for a youth camp near Sequim.
The hearing will start at 10:30 a.m. in the commissioners’ hearing room (160) in the Clallam County Courthouse, 223 E. Fourth St., Port Angeles.
Commissioners set the hearing date on Tuesday.
The case ranged over land-use regulations, neighborhood quarrels and religious issues before the county struck an out-of-court settlement earlier this year.
But plaintiffs in another suit — Edwin P. and Diane P. Jones of Sequim — argued that commissioners had not given the deal adequate public scrutiny.
Jefferson County Superior Court Judge Craddock Verser — in whose court the cases were filed — agreed and ordered Clallam officials to recast the settlement.
As outlined in a memorandum obtained Tuesday by Peninsula Daily News, the settlement will allow the church to:
* Provide overnight accommodations for up to 350 people in existing buildings on the church’s 16.4 acres at 1023 Kitchen-Dick Road
* Build up to 22 cabins to house up to 264 more people and
* Construct five full-hookup spaces for recreational vehicles.
However, it will disallow amphitheater events and outdoor sports activities between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., except for annual Easter sunrise services.
The church, in its suit against the county under the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, or RLUIPA, maintained it needed the camp “to fulfill the purposes, theology, methods and procedures of the Foursquare Church.”
According to the settlement memorandum, the county considered “the possible outcome of trial, including injunction, damages, attorneys’ fees and other relief, and the tangible costs of continued litigation” as reasons for settling the matter.