Mission Statement

Join Today!

TAKE ACTION NOW!

A Comprehensive Plan

Press/News

Contact Information

Questions and Answers about Protecting Lake Whatcom Resevoir

Please Check LakeWhatcom.org for current Lake Whatcom related information, while this website develops its own information package.

A surge of recent housing starts in the hills surrounding Lake Whatcom Reservoir have resulted in de-forestation of steep slopes like this one in Sudden Valley, part of the Austin Creek drainage. Photo: Nancy Grayum

For more than a decade, nobody in Marian Yunghans' Sudden Valley neighborhood could get a sewer connection.

So it was quite a change when Water District No. 10 lifted its moratorium on new connections in January, and contractors could start turning vacant lots into homes. People did not realize how many lots builders had bought up for "spec" homes, Yunghans said.

"A lot of houses are going up," she said. "They all invaded on us like grasshoppers."

Yunghans and many of her neighbors say some builders are cutting down too many trees, working too late at night and flouting other rules of the private community.

A Sudden Valley official said people who are complaining misunderstand the community's guidelines, and builders generally are following the rules. New construction is one topic expected to be discussed at a town hall meeting at 4 p.m. today at The Barns.

Water District No. 10 imposed a moratorium on sewer hookups on much of Geneva and Sudden Valley in 1992, because it did not have enough sewage-pipe capacity.

The district was able to issue a few permits over the next few years and open up much of Sudden Valley to connections in 1999, when it built a new detention tank.

Many landowners, however, were in a so-called "red zone" that had to wait through years of wrangling between the water district and environmentalists over a new sewer line. The district first proposed a line along Lake Whatcom Boulevard and finally ended up building one along Lake Louise Road.

The new line was finished last year and started serving existing homes in November.

Seeing new building after so long was a shock to residents in the red zone, said Steve Grieser, general manager for the Sudden Valley Community Association.

"It is shocking when all of a sudden one day you hear the chainsaws and you look over and a lot's being cleared 10 feet from your house," he said. "Sudden Valley is an intensely platted area."

Building boom

Whatcom County issued 88 permits for new single-family homes in Sudden Valley in the first seven months of this year. That's a 144 percent increase over the same period last year and 47 percent more than all of 2002.

The hot real-estate market countywide would have boosted building in Sudden Valley even without the lifting of the moratorium, said Chris Weitzel, a RE/MAX Realtor who works in Sudden Valley. Countywide, new single-family home permits are up 35 percent in the first seven months of this year.

"We're getting a double whammy," Weitzel said.

Most new houses in Sudden Valley are spec homes, built without a buyer in place, Grieser said. "The houses are selling and as long as they're selling, people are gonna continue building."

The lifting of the moratorium may be spurring building outside of the red zone, because some lot owners did not realize they could build before, Weitzel said.

Complaints

Last month, Yunghans and more than 80 neighbors signed four different petitions complaining about what they say are violations of Sudden Valley's development guidelines.

Petitions said builders are: cutting down too many trees, tearing up roads and not repairing them properly, and cutting driveways to the street for clustered lots that are supposed to enter onto a shared easement. The fourth petition asked the community to require builders to be on site at least four hours a day when subcontractors are working.

Residents presented the petitions to the Sudden Valley board last month.

Tree retention is the most popular issue, Yunghans said.

"We all realize that trees have to come down if a lot is sold," she said. "The concern is that they are cutting all the trees down in the whole lot."

Some of the residents who are complaining do not understand that Sudden Valley's architectural guidelines are not hard-and-fast rules, Grieser said. He said the community's Architectural Control Committee reviews each building plan in light of those guidelines, some of which are open to interpretation.

Any tree removal is approved on site with contractors, Grieser said. Contractors rarely cut unapproved trees, and face possible fines of $5,000 to $7,000 if they do, he said.

Residents have gotten some things wrong, like confusing temporary road patches with permanent ones, Grieser said. He said one petition included a picture of what residents said was a cluster lot with its own driveway onto the street, but the lot really went through the proper easement.

Grieser said he knew of one case where the Architectural Control Committee approved a driveway onto the street for a cluster lot.

Builders do sometimes make noise when they're not supposed to, Grieser said.

"What people are supposed to do is call security right away," he said. "They will come out and shut them down."

It's usually a matter of educating subcontractors, he said.

Buy it

Some residents have a false sense of ownership of land around them, Weitzel said.

"I had a phone call from one lady who told me that there was a builder knocking down her blackberry bushes," he said.

Weitzel said he asked her where the bushes were and she said: "Well, across the street from my property, where the deer sleep."

Weitzel said that he lives in the red zone and as soon as he realized the moratorium would be lifted, he paid $26,000 for the lot next door so it would remain vacant. The Sudden Valley Community Association has been buying up lots to cut potential development, and has incentives for residents to buy and consolidate adjoining lots.

Weitzel acted as the agent to sell the lot on the other side of his house to a builder and knows a house is going to go in there.

"That's just a fact of life. You can't live in society and not have people live in houses," he said. "Certainly we're not going to stop people from wanting to have what we have."

Reach Aubrey Cohen at aubrey.cohen@bellinghamherald.com or 715-2289.

email: info@pflw.org
phone: 360-676-1254

© 2002 People for Lake Whatcom
Website hosting donated by Fibercloud

Last updated: .