LANGLEY — The developer’s defense of the controversial Langley Passage housing project will again wait for another day.
Proponents of the project asked Langley’s Planning Advisory Board for a two-week delay on Wednesday, at the beginning of the restarted hearing for the 20-lot development near the city’s eastern end.
Doug Kelly, an attorney for Whidbey Neighborhood Partners, said the engineer who had calculated the amount of stormwater runoff coming from the project — a critical concern to neighbors who live along the crumbling Edgecliff bluff nearby — had made a mathematical mistake.
“He came to the conclusion that he had a different set of calculations,” Kelly said.
Kelly said city officials, when told of the problem the day before the hearing, wanted more time to study the issue.
Larry Cort, Langley’s chief of planning, agreed another delay was necessary.
“We have not even had a chance to look at these yet,” Cort said, adding that the city may need additional time for further analysis when the Planning Advisory Board meets again later this month.
The math problem centers on “surface flow,” the amount of water that won’t soak into the earth or the 21 rain gardens to be built on the 8.52-acre property next to Edgecliff Drive.
Previously, the developer’s experts had said developing the property would lead to an increase of 727,901 gallons of water runoff each year due to a new road, roofs and other hardened surfaces, and the removal of trees.
That number hasn’t changed. What’s changed is the amount of water that will be diverted into rain gardens; the previous numbers did not include roadway runoff, which will also be funneled into rain gardens.
The project’s engineer now says 581,996 gallons of water will be handled by rain gardens, and surface flow will drop from the previous estimate of 527,256 gallons to 145,905 gallons.
Jim Sundberg, chairman of the Planning Advisory Board, said it was important to get the best estimates available.
“If we can start from the same numbers, the hearing, I think, can be more about facts rather than about disagreements about overall impacts,” he said.
Sundberg also noted that figures on runoff provided by project opponent Robin Adams, a member of the Langley Critical Area Alliance, were not correct. Those figures were four times larger than those created by the developer.
“I think it’s only fair to say that I think his numbers are also in error, and need to be probably reworked and maybe resubmitted,” Sundberg said.
Members of the Planning Advisory Board unanimously agreed to reschedule the wrap-up for the Langley Passage hearing to Wednesday, May 26.
It was the second unexpected postponement in recent weeks. The hearing on April 28 was abruptly adjourned when the developer’s water-flow expert fainted near the start of the meeting.
