Current issues
Many land-use, zoning, and legislative issues may affect the rural/suburban quality of life for Hollywood Hill residents.
Please contact the Association if you have any questions, comments, or new issues which you feel are important to Hollywood Hill residents.
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Keesling Property Updates
Adult Beverage Ordinance Updates
Urban development in our Rural neighborhood
Sept 2023
KC Permitting displays contempt for zoning laws
In spite of the court's reversal of Murray Franklyn LLC's Boundary Line Adjustment (BLA)*, King County Permitting issued the developer permits for development of the unqualified lots of the 24-acre Keesling tract. The first thing that occurred was clearcutting 17 acres of century-old "legacy forest" at the head of Gold Creek. This would not have been so drastic if minimum lot sizes had been respected by KC Permitting.
Now, houses are going up on lots that are too small to qualify as "building sites" in our RA-2.5 zoning, as cited in the court reversal of the BLA.
The "Neighbors" group filed suit against the building permits. The success of reversing the BLA looked likely to be repeated as it was (and is) as clear as law gets that these lots fail to qualify as building sites in our zoning. But weeks before the case was to be heard in court, the clearcutting and building broke the will of Neighbors and the suit was abandoned. In return, the developer promised to leave a few more trees. Results on the ground speak for themselves.
On the positive side, we have the BLA decision which clearly states that these lots are too small to qualify as "building sites". This can be applied going forward. Also, we have an admittance by the Director of Permitting Jim Chan that they have been "processing" permits on un-qualified lots for years as an apparent defense for what they were allowing Murray Franklyn to do. But that is like a burglar telling the judge that he's been successfully robbing people for years, so the court should let him continue doing what he's good at.
These take-aways may help in our ongoing push for reform of the culture in Permitting that systematically ignores our zoning codes in favor of garnering revenue from issuing permits.
Thanks to all of the Hill residents who pitched in funds and volunteer time to get this challenge as far as it got.
*see history at http://hollywoodhillassoc.com/keesling-murray-franklyn.html
Big Win in the Washington State Supreme Court
Sep 19, 2024
Invalidation of the ABO by the Growth Management Hearing Board Upheld
After years of expensive legal wrangling, we prevailed in defeating King County's Adult Beverage Ordinance 19030 (ABO). Central to this effort has been Friends of Sammamish Valley,formed with support from the HHA, to oppose the ABO. We had an ally in the legal battle: Futurewise. Many hands came onboard to oppose the ABO, understanding how it posed a significant threat to not only our neighborhood and local farmlands, but to all of Rural unincorporated King County.
In a nutshell, this ordinance was an attempt by the King County Permitting to avoid its responsibility to abide by and defend the zoning codes that protect our private property rights, the "protected" farmlands and our Rural communities in general. While this court decision is a big victory, the underlying problem remains:
King County's Permitting Division, which handles both permitting and code enforcement, has gone rogue. As long as a developer or violator is willing to pay for permits, KC Permitting looks the other way if code violations occur.
So this victory is just one battle in the larger campaign to address the root problem of a systemic culture that has evolved in Permitting that puts revenue generation ahead of abiding by the codes and carrying out code enforcement against violations of the laws for which it exists to administer.
Rather than go into the details of the ABO here, you can follow these links to find more information on this saga:
Friends of Sammamish Valley:
Futurewise:
The Cascadia Advocate:
Supreme Court opinion upholding GMHB invalidation of the ABO:WSSC opinion ABO
Winery Ordinance
Understanding the issues leading to the “winery ordinance” is a crucial element to our effective defense of our homes and community. We know the issues involved in the “winery ordinance” can seem complex, so we have distilled them into a Q&A article, which can be found here.
Winery Ordinance Q & A (2/25/2019)