LANGLEY — Opponents of a proposed subdivision in the Edgecliff neighborhood have asked the city council to reconsider its decision to let 20 new homes be built on the city’s northeastern end.
The Whidbey Environmental Action Network and the Langley Critical Areas Alliance, a group of property owners who live near the proposed housing project, filed the joint request for review on April 12. The groups have raised repeated concerns that the new subdivision would make the landslide-prone bluff along Edgecliff Drive more unstable.
The Langley council unanimously approved the preliminary plan for the new neighborhood on
April 5, almost five years after the development proposal plopped into the permit pipeline, but this week’s challenge wasn’t unexpected. Robin Adams, spokesman for the Langley Critical Areas Alliance, had said earlier the alliance would ask the council to reconsider.
According to the request for reconsideration, signed by Adams and Steve Erickson of WEAN, the city council and staff made multiple “obvious legal errors” during the process to approve the preliminary plan for Langley Passage. WEAN and the alliance claim the developer’s plan to install utility lines in a driveway on an adjoining property would damage a nearby wetland.
The opponents also claimed the city’s handling of the development was illegal and accused city staff of “egregious misconduct” during their environmental review of the change in the location for water and sewer lines that would serve the housing project and the neighborhood.
WEAN and the alliance have asked the council to reinstate its November decision to reject the preliminary plan for the new subdivision.
Whidbey Neighborhood Partners plans to build Langley Passage, a new subdivision of two- and three-bedroom single-family homes, on 8.52 acres south of Edgecliff Drive. Nearly half the property would remain undeveloped under the current plan, which will require additional council approval once the final plat is complete.
The council will review the reconsideration request at its meeting next week. The council meets at 5:30 p.m. Monday, April 18 at city hall.
