Latest news with #SpanawayConcernedCitizens
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Controversial homeless village near Spanaway Lake clears another legal challenge
A project near Spanaway Lake promising to house nearly 300 chronically unhoused individuals has cleared the latest legal challenge made by a group who has opposed the project at every turn. Despite having little-to-no success in their opposition to the development, the group says it is not giving up. On March 28, a Thurston County judge denied the appeal of a Pierce County land examiner's decision to allow the Good Neighbor Village project to be constructed on land adjacent to multiple wetlands near Spanaway Lake. Spanaway Concerned Citizens is a group representing neighbors to the project who oppose the development due to concerns regarding its potential impact on nearby wetlands and endangered species. Tacoma Rescue Mission, one of Pierce County's largest homeless shelter operators, purchased the land at 176th Street and Spanaway Loop Road. With support from former Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier and the Pierce County Council, the organization planned to construct a micro-village community for those who have been living chronically unhoused. Tacoma Rescue Mission's Executive Director Duke Paulson has promised the Good Neighbor Village will provide nearly 300 units of permanent supportive housing for veterans and the elderly. In an interview with The News Tribune in May, Paulson said the village would serve people who don't have many sustainable, long-term options to get off the streets and they would come to the village to work, pay rent and rehabilitate themselves. The cost of the project is estimated at more than $62 million and is projected to cost $3.2 million annually to operate upon its expected completion in 2029, according to project materials. Spanaway Concerned Citizens and its attorneys presented their case last spring against the Good Neighbor Village during a Pierce County Land Examiner's hearing that lasted weeks. Pierce County hearing examiner Alex Sidles decided to approve the project in June. In September, Spanaway Concerned Citizens filed a petition in Thurston County Superior Court challenging the hearing examiner's decision. The judges decision, filed on March 28, stated that Spanaway Concerned Citizens failed to meet the burden of proof and the land examiner's original decision was 'supported by substantial evidence' and was a 'correct interpretation of the law and application of the law to the facts of this case.' In a newsletter sent April 7, Spanaway Concerned Citizens announced their lawyers had filed a motion in Thurston County Superior Court, asking the judge to reconsider her dismissal of their appeal. According to the letter, the challenge will make two arguments — Tacoma Rescue Mission does not own the entire project site and the proposed development contradicts the Pierce County Comprehensive Plan's requirements for housing density. Lawyers representing Spanaway Concerned Citizens have previously argued Tacoma Rescue Mission does not own the entirety of the land they purchased to build Good Neighbor Village. During the initial land use hearing last spring, their legal team cited a 1920 land easement in which a Pierce County drainage district acquired a strip of the property from a previous owner. They argued this strip of property still is owned by the drainage district and therefore could not be sold to Tacoma Rescue Village. 'We have made significant strides over the past two and a half years — and we are not stopping now,' Spanaway Concerned Citizens wrote in their April 7 newsletter. In November, the project broke ground as construction crews began to clear trees and level ground where homes would be built. As Tacoma Rescue Mission and supporters of the Good Neighbor Village celebrated, they were met by picketed protesters representing Spanaway Concerned Citizens.
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Is work on a controversial homeless village causing fish to die near Spanaway Lake?
Neighbors of a controversial homeless village near Spanaway Lake say the development is causing hundreds of fish to die in nearby waterways. State agencies investigating those claims report seeing only a dozen or so dead fish and have been unable to confirm that the fish are dying due to nearby development. In early February, The News Tribune began to receive reports of dead fish in Spanaway Lake and a small creek that flows into it known as Coffee Creek. Multiple neighbors reported seeing hundreds of dead fish and pointed to recent development on Tacoma Rescue Mission's Good Neighbor Village as the cause. 'Because of all this deforestation and replacement of culverts causing silt and iron to come into Spanaway Lake now probably more than 500 fish have been killed in the last 4 weeks all around Spanaway Lake and no one is doing anything about it,' Sandy Williams, wrote to The News Tribune on Feb. 18. Williams is the chair of the Friends of Spanaway Lake, a local advocacy group interested in preserving Spanaway Lake. The News Tribune was unable to obtain photographic evidence of hundreds of dead fish. Local residents provided photos of dozens of dead fish collectively. The Good Neighbor Village would house roughly 300 chronically homeless people. The project has been met with resistance from a group of neighbors who have organized themselves as Spanaway Concerned Citizens. Members of Spanaway Concerned Citizens have protested the Good Neighbor Village since its conception, raising concerns about the development's potential impact to multiple adjacent wetlands. The death of fish was reported to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) near the end of January, and the agency sent investigators to the area within days of the initial report. Bridget Mire, a spokesperson for WDFW, told The News Tribune investigators found about a dozen dead fish. 'Upon first hearing of the fish mortality, an epidemiologist with WDFW's Fish Program tested four of the fish for pathogens and gill condition,' Mire said in an email to The News Tribune. 'Our testing was inconclusive, and there may be other factors at play that are outside of our purview.' On Feb. 18, Mire said the WDFW was no longer involved with the case and had passed it off to the Washington State Department of Ecology. Brittny Goodsell, a spokesperson for the Department of Ecology, told The News Tribune on Feb. 21, 'There are still no known issues about the water quality in the area,' following the agency's investigation and that it had closed the case. Don Russell has been doing water-quality monitoring in the Pierce County area since the 1950s. For 35 years he has been doing so as a volunteer and currently works with the Chambers-Clover Creek Watershed Council. Russell has advocated against the Good Neighbor Village project alongside Spanaway Concerned Citizens. He told The News Tribune that he was made aware of the fish deaths by folks who were previously involved with Spanaway Concerned Citizens. He said using tests that have been standard for water-quality monitoring through his career, he tested the water and examined the a few dead fish. He provided The News Tribune with a photo of a fish he dissected to examine its gills. In an interview with The News Tribune, Russell said he concluded the fish had died of impaired gill function from oxidized iron in the water, leading to asphyxiation. In an email sent to the Pierce County Council and the Pierce County Executive on Feb. 25, Russell noted that the sediment in the water could have also had an impact. 'Bear in mind that fish are sight dependent feeders and any turbidity in the water whether caused by iron or bentonite clay turbidity would prevent prey acquisition and lead to starvation.' he wrote on Feb. 25. 'It is notable that the stomachs in some fish examined were devoid of any significant content.' In fall 2024, workers hired by Tacoma Rescue Mission cleared a fish culvert under a road that they wanted to use to get heavy construction equipment onto the project site. They did so without a proper permit, violating county and federal regulations. Duke Paulson, executive director for Tacoma Rescue Mission, told The News Tribune the fish culvert was cleared to allow water to pass through in hopes of preventing high-water flooding of the road. Russell told The News Tribune the road serves as a dam of sorts, preventing water from a wetland marsh south of the road from flowing into Coffee Creek. He hypothesized that when water from the wetland caused the water level of Coffee Creek to rise after the culvert was cleared, it caused a reaction with iron saturated soils near the creek bed. He said he suspects that is how iron sediments saturated Coffee Creek and caused the fish deaths. Last year Spanaway Concerned Citizens hired lawyers to make a case against the village during a Pierce County land examiner's hearing that lasted weeks. The project was eventually approved by the land examiner. This year, a new land examiner heard an appeal filed by Spanaway Concerned Citizens due to the unpermitted fish culvert work done by Tacoma Rescue Mission. The appeal was denied.
