SEQUIM — A Sequim developer who wants to preserve farmland by building a cluster of homes in the middle of a 65-acre pasture will have limited access to water, a Clallam County hearing examiner has ruled.
Dave LeRoux and his business partner, Walter Johnson of Sequim, will be allowed to build five additional lots on their proposed cluster on Discovery Trail Farm at the southeast corner of Old Olympic Highway and Kitchen-Dick Road, Clallam County Hearing Examiner Christopher Melly ruled.
But Melly also sided with a Department of Community Development condition that restricts water withdrawals in the agricultural retention zone.
“I wasn’t real surprised,” LeRoux said of the Hearing Examiner’s decision.
Under requirements set forth by the state Department of Ecology, LeRoux’s entire development — the farm and the 14-lot cluster — can draw a maximum of 5,000 gallons of water per day. Once developed, each lot would have access to 325 gallons per day.
LeRoux argued in the June 23 hearing that the farm should be considered separate from the development because the water restrictions leave no water for the surrounding farm.
Discovery Trail Farm would be eligible to use 65,000 gallons of water per day had LeRoux split the land into five-acre parcels.
“I got into this to show that farmland could be developed in an environmentally responsible manner,” LeRoux said on Tuesday.
LeRoux will develop on 25 percent the farm and leave the other 75 percent alone.
The idea is to preserve the rural characteristics of the land by confining the development to the cluster. Two of eight existing lots in the cluster have already been developed.
Plans to appeal
LeRoux plans to appeal the hearing examiner’s ruling to the three Clallam County commissioners, who have judicial authority in the appeals process.
“The county ordinance [on cluster development] is broken,” LeRoux said.
“When the county wrote this cluster ordinance, they never intended the farm to be sharing the well with the development, and so when I went into this, I figured I would get 14 homes and one [farmhouse] on the farm.”
Should the commissioners uphold Melly’s decision, LeRoux will not likely appeal to Clallam County Superior Court.
“I’m not interested in taking it to higher court,” LeRoux said.
“I think it can be fixed administratively.”
LeRoux said he has already invested thousands of dollars into the cluster plan.
First in county
Discovery Trail Farm is the first cluster development ever attempted under agricultural zoning in Clallam County. LeRoux has argued that state and county zoning rules are disincentives to his preservation efforts.
He described the one-dwelling-per-five-acre rural zoning common in Dungeness Valley as a “travesty.”
“Five-acre lots are not farmland,” LeRoux said.
Seven people spoke in favor of the cluster in the June 23 hearing before the Hearing Examiner.
Proponents said the Discovery Trail Farm will offer easy access to the Sequim Valley Airport, unobstructed views of the Olympic Mountains and starry night skies.
County planners have asked Ecology to reconsider its view of the cluster and surrounding farm as one, and instead see them as separate areas with separate water needs.
“The planning department and myself, personally, are very supportive of cluster development,” Clallam County Planning Manager Steve Gray said in last month’s hearing.
Meanwhile, LeRoux said the Discovery Trail Farm is “very much in gear.”
“The project will move ahead,” he said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.