306 Center Street permit appeal heard Thursday

November 30, 2022

The final chapter on the fate of Brandon Atkinson’s 306 Center Street condominium project opens Thursday with the appeal to stop the project before Town of La Conner Hearing Examiner David Lowell at 2 p.m., a Zoom-only hearing. Residents Debbie Aldrich and Linda Talman are again presenting their case that Atkinson’s conditional use permit must be denied since the town council in 1986 approved a contract rezone of the property that placed conditions on its future use. Atkinson’s one page response relies on Town planner Michael Davolio’s September administrative determination and its finding of facts, making no additional arguments, only repeating the Town staff’s position that the “Contract Rezone Agreement is unenforceable as a matter of law.”

Town staff are relying on the assessment of Kenyon Disend, the law firm it hired last summer. Their lawyers concluded “Given what is known, however, we believe that failure to record the Contract Rezone likely means that it does not bind subsequent purchasers or owners because they had no constructive or record notice of the Contract Rezone.”

Aldrich and Talman have disagreed since Talman unearthed the contract rezone in April, after the March 31 hearing on Atkinson’s conditional use permit. They resubmitted their lawyer’s, David Bricklin, six-page August letter as part of a 52 page appeal: another eight pages of argument and 38 pages of historical Town documents.

The Town has not addressed Bricklin’s analysis.

In their one-page response, Aldrich and Talman point out that Bricklin, unlike Atkinson, directly addressed the three questions posed in the Hearing Examiner original, June findings. They now ask Lowell to “consider Appellants legal argument and documentary review as unrefuted.”

Their legal argument is that the 1986 council decision changing the Blades property from residential to commercial placed Historic Preservation District restrictions on it, the council approving “both a private contract and a legislative amendment to the Town’s Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Code.” The council minutes state: “Councilmember Sellen made the motion, seconded by councilmember Zimmerman, to rezone the aforementioned property to Commercial Use placing same restrictions on property as in Historic Preservation District and to also change the Comprehensive Plan. Motion carried with Councilperson Morefield voting nay.”