SEQUIM — And you thought secession went out with the Civil War.
A neighborhood northeast of Sequim — a stone’s throw from Wal-Mart for some of the residents — wants no part of its neighboring city.
On Tuesday, the three Clallam County commissioners will consider passing a rare emergency ordinance forbidding land divisions within an area bounded by North Priest Road, Hendrickson Road, Brackett Road, and the Sequim city line.
The subdivision, known as Palo Verde, is an unwilling part of the Sequim Urban Growth Area.
An urban growth area is unincorporated land that lies adjacent to an established city, such as Sequim, or one that’s a village in name only, like Sekiu.
Under the state Growth Management Act, an urban growth area is where areas may grow, where cities may extend their public utilities and where the cities may annex.
Two examples of such growth areas on the North Olympic Peninsula are Carlsborg in Clallam County and the Tri-Area of Port Hadlock, Irondale and Chimacum in Jefferson County.
But Palo Verde homeowners want none of the above — and have not since the 1990s.
Palo Verde became a play within the larger drama of the county’s attempt to comply with the orders of the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board, the three-person panel that enforces the growth act.
Last April, the board ruled that Palo Verde and other areas around Sequim were zoned too rural, in effect, to be so close to the city.
It ordered that they be “upzoned” from allowing two dwellings per acre to permitting five dwellings per acre.
Palo Verde residents objected — especially since they hadn’t wanted to be part of the urban growth area to begin with.
At hearings that began in August about how the county would meet the board’s orders, the homeowners reminded planners that — in the residents’ view — they’d been forced into the urban growth area.
‘Redheaded stepchild’
One man called Palo Verde “the redheaded stepchild of the county.”
Planning commissioners listened attentively — and sympathetically — and agreed to place the issue on their list of changes to the county’s comprehensive plan.
Such changes are considered once a year and Palo Verde was too late to make this year’s October docket.
Thus, the issue will resurface within a year.
Meanwhile, the area is in an interim zone that would allow a lot owner to build more homes on his or her property.
Therefore, the three county commissioners on Tuesday will declare a moratorium on the lot splits until Palo Verde can be freed from the urban growth area.
Until then, Sequim Planning Director Dennis Lefevre has gone on the record that the city has no plans to annex Palo Verde.
And that may set the residents to whistling “Dixie.”
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Reporter Jim Casey can be reached at 360-417-3538 or at jim.casey@peninsuladailynews.com.
