PORT TOWNSEND – Paperwork to gain a zone change that would eventually move homeland security training shots up into the hills has been filed by the owner of the private training firm.
Joe D’Amico, president of Security Services Northwest, submitted a comprehensive plan amendment proposal to change the zoning of up to 40 acres on U.S. Highway 101 in Discovery Bay from rural residential to commercial forest.
That would allow him to seek a conditional-use permit for an outdoor recreational shooting park on land in the hills above Discovery Bay that would help to mitigate gun noise on bay neighbors, he said.
He currently has a shooting range that only employees of the grandfathered security business are able to use on 22 bay acres that D’Amico leases from Discovery Bay Land Co..
“We’d like [Jefferson] County to buy off on that because we think it’s a resolution to the problem,” said D’Amico.
His “problem” revolves around the complaints from Discovery Bay residents about shooting noise that resonates from the current training grounds.
“From the very beginning, when the complaints came in, we said, ‘Let us move our range up in the hills,'” D’Amico said.
That was in the summer of 2005, and the complaints led to a county stop-work order leveled on the security firm, because three buildings on the grounds didn’t have the proper building permits.
A hearing examiner in January 2006 decided that the entire business was illegal because of the lack of permits and ruled that it could not operate in any capacity.
Since then, Security Systems Northwest has prevailed in a Kitsap County Superior Court appeal that deemed the business grandfathered.
But the court asked the same hearing examiner to determine the “nature and scope” of the business prior to January 1992, when Jefferson County’s zoning laws were adopted.
That hearing examiner stated Security Services is allowed three employees.
D’Amico now has appealed that decision to Kitsap County Superior Court.
He said he sees the proposed comprehensive plan amendment – which Al Scalf, county director of community development, suggested he apply for earlier this year – as a viable way to resolve the legal embattlements.
There will be future public hearings on the proposal as well as others that were received by the March 1 deadline.
There are 11 proposals in total, three suggested amendments and eight site-specific amendments, most of which seek rezoning classifications.
The proposals will go before the Planning Commission and the county commissioners in future public hearings.
The county commissioners will ultimately decide whether to accept the amendment proposals.
