Will a proposed new housing development in Brier create flooding problems in Kenmore, as well as harm a local fish habitat?

“We feel it will cause problems,” said Kenmore’s Elizabeth Mooney, a member of the grassroots group People for an Environmentally Responsible Kenmore (PERK).

Chair of another group of local activists, the Sno-King Watershed Council, Eric Adman agrees. So does Brier resident Peggy Dare, a member of yet a third local organization, the Brier Horse Network, who described the development as “very unfriendly” to walkers and horses, as well as the environment in general.

Also on the side of the various activists is attorney Gerry Pollet, who is representing the development’s opposition free-of-charge.

For his part, Pollet questions the process Brier has used so far to move the project forward. Along with others, Pollet was particularly critical of a proceeding held before a hearing examiner in Brier last month.

Responding to formal challenges filed by PERK, the hearing examiner ruled on the side of the development and the city of Brier. According to Pollet, Brier officials formally ruled the development as being environmentally non-significant, allowing the developer to completely bypass an environmental impact study. The hearing involved a challenge to that ruling of non-significance.

A Brier official did not return a phone call requesting comment for this story. Identified by several sources as Phoenix Development, Inc., the potential developer could not be reached.

According to Adman and others, the 13.7-acre development is planned for directly along the Kenmore and Brier borders, in the words of Dare, devouring one of the last undeveloped spaces left in the immediate area.

While destruction of that green space is on the minds of the development’s detractors, what bothers them most is the presence of a tributary of a creek known mostly by its number designation, 0056.

Stream 0056 flows directly into Log Boom Park and, ultimately, Lake Washington. Along the way, it passes close to the Harbor Village Marina housing development in Kenmore. Adman said Heritage suffered major flooding last December with 0056 overflowing its banks to the extent it created an entirely new water course. Adman, Mooney and others all are concerned additional runoff created by the proposed housing development only will serve to worsen 0056’s flooding problems.

Adman said Brier’s hearing examiner eventually agreed to reconsider PERK’s complaint. But apparently to the surprise of no one involved, the examiner stayed with the original ruling. Pollet said it’s highly unusual for an examiner to suddenly reverse his own decision.

Ultimately, the final municipal decision on the issue belongs to Brier City Council and Dare said it should reach that body early this month, possibly at its Nov. 10 meeting. From her point of view, Dare feels the opposition may be out of luck.

“It’s so late in the process,” she said. “It’s kind of a done deal.”

A retired designer/architect herself, Dare said she came up with at least a preliminary design for cluster homes on the site, a design that would save some greenspace, some trees and prevent some water runoff. Adman stated his goal has never been to kill the development. He just wishes it could be done in a manner he feels is more environmentally sound.

If Dare feels the development is a done deal, Pollet doesn’t necessarily agree, hinting more than once at potential court action. According to Pollet, on the Kenmore side of the border, the stream flowing from the targeted property is treated as a stream. The city requires a 200-foot buffer on both banks.

“When it crosses into Brier, it’s called a ditch and gets 25 feet,” Pollet said.

For the most part, Pollet based his criticism of the Brier appeal hearing on an alleged lack of time for public comment. He said lawyers from the developers and the city dominated, while 40 to 50 Kenmore and Brier residents weren’t allowed to speak until after 10 p.m., by which time many had been simply given up and left.

“Many, many people who wanted to testify never got the chance,” Pollet contends. “It was a process that shut out the public.”

“It was very discouraging,” Dare said. “Much of the public didn’t get a chance to speak.”

Though he did not have an exact time table, Pollet said that Kenmore is under a court order to remove a culvert that blocks fish from traveling the stream in question. At that point, he argues the stream very much could again become a fish bearing waterway.

“The hearing examiner said he was under no obligation to consider the effects on downstream fish habitats,” Pollet said, adding Brier used outdated ordinances to OK the development, ordinances that should have been updated under state law.

“We don’t think the city even followed its own weak ordinance,” Pollet argues.

Pollet said he is in contact with Phoenix in hopes of getting it to redesign the project, but he again hinted at court action if those talks fail.

“It’s an important stream to try and save,” Pollet said.