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Home My WebLink About1994-02-07 Special MinutesFebruary 7, 1994 7:00 p.m. CALL TO ORDER ROLL CALL OFFICIALS SPECIAL PRESENTATION CITIZENS COMMENTS CONSENT AGENDA HEARINGS Hillcrest Appeal (quasi-judicial) TUKWILA CITY COUNCIL MINUTES Tukwila City Hall Council Chambers Mayor Rants called the Special Meeting of the Tukwila City Council to order and led the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance. JOE DUFFLE; JOAN HERNANDEZ; STEVE MULLET, Council President; DENNIS ROBERTSON; ALLAN EKBERG; JOYCE CRAFT; DOROTHY DeRODAS LINDA COHEN, City Attorney; JOHN McFARLAND, City Administrator; RICK BEELER, DCD Director; RON CAMERON, City Engineer; ROSS EARNST, Public Works Director; JACK PACE, Senior Engineer; RON WALDNER, Chief of Police. Mayor Rants presented his annual State of the City message. The entire text was printed in the February Hazelnut. Historical Society member Roger Baker, 11624 42nd Ave. So., suggested the City consider printing a brochure which would list historical sites in the City. a. Approval of Minutes: 1/3/94 b. Approval of Vouchers: Nos. 69401 through 69612 in the amount of $368,219.98 c. Authorize Mayor to sign interlocal agreement with Green River Flood Control Zone District to maintain the Tukwila Corps 205 levee project. d. Authorize Mayor to sign contract with Herrera Environmental Consultants in the amount of $46,000 to provide stormwater quality planning services for the Fostoria Stormwater Quality Management Plan e. Authorize Mayor to sign Larry's Market Development Agreement MOVED BY HERNANDEZ, SECONDED BY DUFFIE, TO APPROVE THE CONSENT AGENDA AS SUBMITTED. MOTION CARRIED. a. An appeal (by City staff) of the Planning Commission's decision to uphold an appeal by LeRoy Lowe for slope stability requirements in the Sensitive Areas Ordinance: File #93 -01 APP; Hillcrest (continued from 1/10/94). Tukwila City Council Regular Meeting February 7, 1994 Page 2 Hearings (con't' MOVED BY ROBERTSON, SECONDED BY EKBERG, TO Hillcrest Appeal REVERSE THE PLANNING COMMISSION'S DECISION Moratorium on Specific Properties (Public Hearing) Public Comment Jeff Mann ROLL CALL VOTE: DUFFIE NO HERNANDEZ YES MULLET NO ROBERTSON YES EKBERG YES DeRODAS NO RANTS YES (tie breaker) 1l *MOTION CARRIED 4 -3. THE PLANNING COMMISSION'S DECISION IS REVERSED. (Verbatim transcript is attached. (26 pages) Councilmember Craft returned at 9:42 p.m. A moratorium on acceptance of applications for, and issuance of, building permits, comprehensive plan amendments, and rezones for specific properties located within the City. Mayor Rants opened the hearing at 9:45 p.m. DCD Director Rick Beeler explained that the hearing was being held pursuant to Ordinance No. 1685, adopted by Council in December, 1993, to prevent the City's acceptance of building permits, rezones, development and comprehensive plan amendment applications until the comprehensive plan is further along. The ordinance cited several basis for the moratorium one of which was the potential detrimental affects to the neighborhood and the health, safety and welfare of the general public by the context that the contemplated changes in zoning by the Tukwila Tomorrow Committee could conflict with the existing zoning of the property. Jeff Mann, 12720 Gateway Drive, PacTec Engineering, representing Becker Trucking, asked that the Becker site be removed from the moratorium. According to Mann the request is based on three points he feels addresses the findings of fact of Ordinance No. 1685: 1) When the property was annexed into Tukwila, the task force at that time concluded that they wanted to encourage redevelopment of the commercial area while also providing a better transition from single family to commercial use. As a result, the task force recommended the Tukwila comprehensive land use map be amended to reduce the commercial area and designated an area on the west side of East Marginal Way as light industrial. That area is the Becker property. The City recommended that these properties be designated for light industrial and subsequently zoned for CM zoning. Mann stated that since that time, no substantial or material change has occurred to the property or surrounding properties since the placement of the Tukwila City Council Regular Meeting February 7, 1994 Page 3 Hearings (con't) comprehensive land use designation and zoning that would cause any Moratorium on Specific detrimental affect from this designation. No expansion of zoning, no Properties expansion of land use designation, no encroachment of any other single family homes or new homes has occurred. Homes adjacent to the site are located in C -1 zoning. There has been no change since the comprehensive designations and zonings were put in place on this site, nor has there been any detrimental affect from them; 2) on three occasions the City of Tukwila has found that this site and the proposed use for Becker Transfer to be compatible with the City's comprehensive planning and zoning with appropriate conditions. Once in December, 1989, when the Planning Commission approved the conditional use permit on the site, twice in February, 1990, when the City Council on appeal proved this site, and third, in November, 1993, when the Planning Commission again approved the conditional use permit, this time with substantial increase in conditions. Mann went on to explain that at that time a finding was made regarding the zoning, that the intent of the CM, industrial park zoned designation, was to allow uses which are non nuisance oriented and which don't produce excessive noise, pollution, or odor. The conditional use permit process offers opportunity to assure that restrictive performance standards are imposed on specific uses to minimize perceived incompatible land uses. The Planning Commission adopted the finding that if parking facilities and appropriate use within the CM zone provided adequate measures are taken to insure the use is generally compatible with the surrounding land uses by requiring dense landscape buffers any negative visual impact will be significantly reduced. Other conditions were also placed upon the facility; 3) In each of the approvals, the City adopted a determination of nonsignificance (DNS). Adoption of a DNS indicates there is no adverse or significant adverse affect by the proposed project or imminent threat to public health, safety, or serious environmental degradation through the development of this property. In conclusion, Mann stated that these three items show that the site would not be detrimental to the surrounding neighborhood and it would also, with conditions, be compatible with the existing single family neighborhoods. Mann stated he felt the conditional use permit would be a better process to address this site than the moratorium. Mann stated that under the Council's findings of fact, the Becker property was placed in a moratorium under a finding that its current designation was detrimental to the surrounding neighborhoods and that it was incompatible. In all the City's actions and decisions, Becker has been found compatible and therefore, the findings of fact of the ordinance would not apply. Councilmember Robertson explained that the issue was not whether the Becker property was in conformance with the current zoning. What is at issue is a change to the current land use zoning and comprehensive land use plan. The subject ordinance is in place to deter any changes on the property that might preclude or interfere Tukwila City Council Regular Meeting February 7, 1994 Page 4 Hearines (con't) Moratorium on Specific Properties Pat Dillon Peter Thompson Hearing Closed Council Discussion Dq with Council's decisions as they consider changes to the land use zoning and comprehensive land use plan later in the year. Councilmember Hernandez asked Mann if the moratorium would place any restrictions on his business that would result in a hardship during in the next six months. Mann responded he felt this action placed Becker in a "Catch 22" as Council is currently considering Becker's application for a Conditional Use Permit. Becker will present testimony in the CUP hearing that the proposal will actually reduce the effects on the neighborhood. Mann reiterated that Becker has shown that it is not incompatible nor detrimental and that Council's findings of fact would not apply to this site. Pat Dillon, property owner, 11508 42nd Ave. South, proposed Beaver Bend Park. Dillon stated he was requesting an exemption for his property as he is now in negotiations with the Duwamish Valley Authority to purchase his land for the proposed Beaver Bend Park. Dillon said he feared the moratorium would put them (Dillon and DVA) in a position of having to lower his position in negotiations because of the limits and requirements the City is placing on the negotiating parties regarding the property. Dillon said he felt he could not now take backup offers for the property because the City is limiting the use of it. Dillon pointed out that his property is adjacent to heavy industrial zoning and was planned as a transition area when annexed to the City. The property has on it conforming use, thus, if the City changes the zoning, they're spot zoning, according to Dillon. Councilmember Robertson suggested Dillon take advantage of the waiver process which allows for special situations. Mayor Rants noted that Council also has both the options of a waiver if approved or removing the moratorium. Peter Thompson, 13450 51st Ave. So., requested that Area 3 be removed from the moratorium. Thompson said he felt the moratorium was a basic taking of his rights as a property owner. Mayor Rants closed the hearing at 10:17 p.m.. Councilmember Robertson stated he favored moving forward with the ordinance as he considers a moratorium to be in the City's best interest while the new comprehensive plan and zoning plan are being developed. Robertson said that while he understands what was said in the public hearing, he feels it doesn't change the issue, rather it validates the moratorium and the need for it. Mayor Rants opposed the ordinance, stating that a moratorium is a drastic way to enforce land use regulations. Councilmember Hernandez agreed with Rants and said that after hearing the testimony tonight, she was having second thoughts about Tukwila City Council Regular Meeting February 7, 1994 Page 5 Hearings (con't) Moratorium on Specific Properties OLD BUSINESS Res. #1289 Establishing Findings Conclusions Denial of Unclassified Use Permit, Baker Commodities the ordinance. There was no public testimony in support of the ordinance. iCf Cj c j JJ Councilmember Craft also opposed the ordinance and said Council needed to consider how far government wants to go into personal business. Councilmember Robertson proposed that based upon the public hearing testimony, Council discuss the total ordinance including waiver exceptions at the next Regular meeting. Council could then determine whether to repeal the entire ordinance or to clarify it with the exception processes. Robertson favored approving the exception processes now and reviewing the entire ordinance in two weeks. MOVED BY CRAFT, SECONDED BY DUFFIE, TO REPEAL ORDINANCE NO.1685.* Councilmember Robertson opposed the motion, stating he felt some people would feel this was a rather quick change of position on the Council's part. He favored further discussion in two weeks. Councilmember Hernandez favored repealing the motion. Councilmembers Mullet, Ekberg, and DeRodas favored continuing the discussion in two weeks. Councilmember Craft commented the requirements of the public hearing had been met. ROLL CALL VOTE: DUFFIE HERNANDEZ MULLET ROBERTSON EKBERG CRAFT DeRODAS YES YES NO NO YES YES NO *MOTION CARRIED 4 -3. City Attorney Linda Cohen explained that a new ordinance, repealing Ordinance No. 1685, would be prepared for passage at the next regular meeting. MOVED BY DUFFIE, SECONDED BY EKBERG, THAT THE PROPOSED RESOLUTION BE READ BY TITLE ONLY. MOTION CARRIED. Attorney Cohen read a RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF TUKWILA, WASHINGTON, FINDING AND CONCLUDING THAT ADDITION OF THE Tukwila City Council Regular Meeting February 7, 1994 Page 6 Old Business (con't) Res. #1289 Establishing Findings Conclusions Denial of Unclassified Use Permit, Baker Commodities 10:55 p.m. Ord. #1689 Establishing A Waiver Process to the Moratorium Enacted by Ord. 1679 NINE STORAGE TANKS AT THE BAKER COMMODITIES' RENDERING PLANT AT 5795 SOUTH 130TH PLACE IS A PROHIBITED EXPANSION, ENLARGEMENT OR INCREASE OF A LEGAL NONCONFORMING USE. MOVED BY HERNANDEZ, SECONDED BY DUFFIE, TO APPROVE RESOLUTION NO. 1289 AS READ.* Council called a 5 minute recess at 10:44 p.m. to consider memos from Stephanie Arend, attorney for Baker Commodities, and Terry Leahy, the City's representative. MOVED BY ROBERTSON, SECONDED BY MULLET, TO EXTEND THE MEETING NOT TO EXCEED ONE HOUR. MOTION CARRIED. Terry Leahy explained that the wording changes he suggested be made to the resolution (in his memo) were for clarification purposes only. MOVED BY ROBERTSON, SECONDED BY HERNANDEZ, TO AMEND PARAGRAPH 16 BY ADDING THREE WORDS AND TWO COMMAS. AFTER THE WORD CONSEOUENCES. WOULD ADD THE WORDS SET FORTH ABOVE: IN FINDING NO. 17, ADD THE WORDS AS SET FORTH ABOVE AFTER THE SIXTH WORD IN THE SENTENCE. MOTION CARRIED. MOVED BY HERNANDEZ, SECONDED BY DUFFIE, THAT NUMBER 9 ON PAGE 2 BE AMENDED TO CHANGE THE PHRASE WESTERN SKYRIDGE RESIDENTIAL AREA TO NORTHEASTERN SKYWAY RESIDENTIAL AREA. MOTION CARRIED. *MOTION CARRIED AS AMENDED. (Verbatim transcript is attached, 6 pages.) MOVED BY DUFFIE, SECONDED BY MULLET, THAT THE PROPOSED ORDINANCE BE READ BY TITLE ONLY. MOTION CARRIED. Attorney Cohen read AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF TUKWILA, WASHINGTON, AMENDING ORDINANCE NO. 1679 WHICH ENACTED A MORATORIUM ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CERTAIN USES IN THE C -2 ZONE ALONG HIGHWAY 99 FROM S. 137TH STREET TO S. 154TH STREET; ESTABLISHING PROVISIONS FOR A WAIVER PROCESS, DEFINING VESTED RIGHTS, AND ESTABLISHING A PROCESS FOR APPEAL. MOVED BY ROBERTSON, SECONDED BY EKBERG, TO ADOPT ORDINANCE NO. 1689 AS READ. MOTION CARRIED. Tukwila City Council Regular Meeting February 7, 1994 Page 7 Old Business (con't) NEW BUSINESS Res. #1290 Supporting the South Central School Bond REPORTS Mayor Council ADJOURNMENT 11:47 p.m. (Agenda item 8c, an ordinance establishing a waiver process for the moratorium enacted by Ordinance No. 1685, was removed from the agenda due to earlier Council motion to repeal Ordinance 1685. MOVED BY DUFFIE, SECONDED BY HERNANDEZ, THAT THE PROPOSED RESOLUTION BE READ IN ITS ENTIRETY. MOTION CARRIED. Linda Cohen read A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF TUKWILA, WASHINGTON, SUPPORTING THE UPCOMING SOUTH CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT BOND FOR SCHOOL MAINTENANCE, MODERNIZATION AND EXPANSION. (title only) MOVED BY DUFFIE, SECONDED BY HERNANDEZ, TO APPROVE RESOLUTION NO. 1290 AS READ. MOTION CARRIED. Mayor Rants presented the Fourth Quarter Report for Council review. Rants reported he attended the first meeting of the Metro Transit Committee. The committee will determine Metro routes, fare boxes, schedules, etc. of bus transportation which will interface with the light rail RTA system as to how they are going to do fares, etc. It will also interface with the PSRC Transportation Committee. Councilmember Duffie urged Councilmembers to attend an annual National League of Cities conference whenever possible. Councilmember Hernandez attended her first Human Services Roundtable meeting on February 1st and reported that the group's focus this year would be on family support issues. MOVED BY ROBERTSON, SECONDED BY HERNANDEZ, THAT THE MEETING BE ADJOURNED AT 11:47 P.M. MOTION CARRIED. Johny "W. Rants, Mayor (7p E. Cantu, City Clerk February 7, 1994 A continuation of an appeal of the Planning Commission Leroy Lowe Public Hearing Mayor Rants:The attorney says to open the hearing then go ahead and ask questions of previous testimony. Councilmember Joyce Craft: First I would like to excuse myself from this hearing because I served on the Planning Commission before so I feel that Rants: You are excused. We know where we can find you? Councilmember Allan Ekberg: As I recall we extended this hearing from two weeks ago, or three weeks ago to this date. So in fact the public hearing should still be opened.... Rants: This is just a reopening for this evening, correct. Ekberg: I would Steve either way I think if we reopen it and have your questioned answered we'd be on track. Councilmember Dennis Robertson: It would seem an appropriate process to follow. We might keep things a little clearer. Rants: All right, we have consensus here. I'll reopen the hearing on the appeal of the Planning Commission decision. Now, Steve? Councilmember Steve Mullet: One of the things that we had asked Mr. Lowe at the end of the meeting was to provide us with the names and more report which covered some drillings especially a 200 foot drilling. We did not get that and I did not see any reference to that in his rebuttal report so I was wondering if that was considered as not important material any more or if we're still going to have references to that report later on? The other question that I had revolved around the ownership of the property in question. And I couldn't quite tell from the minutes if it was ever asked, or if there was some jumbled parts in part of a testimony I couldn't quite figure out what the answers were. I must have been asleep when the questions were asked because I don't remember what the answer was either. So those are the two points I'd like cleared up before we start in to the next section. So I don't know how we want to clear those up. Rants: Will those be cleared up in the City's statements here? Robertson: Well, the ownership wouldn't that be asked in the Mullet: Mr. Lowe could come forward briefly and state that or maybe he was the one that was going to provide us with the I believe it was the Dames and Moore report. And we didn't get that so maybe he could have a comment or two on that before the before we got into the thing if that's appropriate. If not we're save it for questions afterward. I don't Rants: You are requesting a report which you requested too at the other hearing and you have not gotten it. I think it would be appropriate to ask Mr. Lowe. Mr. Lowe, the Council had requested a report. Leroy Lowe: I was out in the hall talking to -I was looking for another report of the Planning Commission's rebuttal. Mullet: One of the questions that came up regarded this 200 foot bore. We now see by your current report that was a WASHDOT well. But in the other meeting it was referred to 2 as a Dames and Moore, that was covered by Dames and Moore report and there was considerable testimony surrounding that as an explanation of what was going on 200 feet down on this side versus that side and considerable thing. And I see we didn't get it and I see it was not mentioned in your other reports, so I would like a clarification on that. If that's not -if it was found out that that didn't have any data that we can use or if you just neglected to get it to us. Lowe: No, to respond to your comment. Yes there is additional data on the 200 foot deep boring and it was done by WASHDOT in 1961 -1960, in that time frame. It is right there on the property line. It is right on the what would be the eastern boundary line of the particular project called Hillcrest. And yes it is -I do have data on that particular boring. And it is in that location right there behind Mullet: Are you prepared to give us written data on that tonight? Lowe: Yes, yes, we do have that. Affirmative. The other question was, of the understanding of ownership. The underlying property that I have a sales and purchase agreement on is from Puget Western. Mullet: OK, so you do not physically own the property now? Lowe: I do not physically own Mullet: Are you making payments on it or do you have an agreement, a lease agreement or something Lowe: Yes, I am making payments on it. Mullet: You are making payments on it. Lowe: Non refundable. Mullet: Just the same if you were dealing with the bank and had a mortgage. Lowe: Exactly. I'd given this information to Mayor Rants, and it's in his file. Mullet: I know, I just couldn't find it in our previous testimony and I wanted to clear that up, that's all. Rants: Dennis? Robertson: Is that sales conditional upon your being able to develop the property or anything? Lowe: No, not at all. The agreement is conditional on my ability to pay. And I've given that information to Mr.-- Honorable Mayor Rants. I gave it to you in a letter. I wrote you a letter and indicated that I am solely responsible for paying all the bills on this property. I have a conditional sales agreement with Puget Western and I -if you need to have copies of that letter I'II make those available to you Mr.- -Mayor Rants. Rants: It might be -if the Council needs that it might be a good idea because I do not recall having that letter. Lowe: I sent you a letter -you and I had a meeting Mullet: I think my question revolved around -there was considerable question about drilling on one piece of property versus drilling on another piece of property and so it would 3 naturally fall. Is it all one piece of property or is it really two separate pieces of property by deed? Lowe: Thank you sir. Rants: You're welcome. Pardon me? City said they'd need ten minutes, Mr. Lowe has requested twenty. So Jack you can feel comfortable with up to twenty minutes. Linda Cohen, Citv Attorney: For clarification, that's twenty minutes total and they'll split the twenty minutes as they see fit. Rants: That is twenty minutes total for the appellant and the applicant. Rick Beeler: So we have twenty minutes and the applicant has twenty minutes, correct? Rants: Excuse me? Beeler: We each have twenty minutes. Councilmember Joe Duffle: Twenty minutes total. Beeler:Twenty minutes total, the City has. Thank you. Rick Beeler, the director of Department of Community Development. And tonight there will be three of us presenting. Dan Clayton from Shannon Wilson is here, he'll be first followed by Ross Earnst, Public Works director, then myself. So Dan... Og Lowe: It's one piece of property. See where Slade Way is? Sir? Mullet: Yes, I know where Slade Way is. Lowe: If you go -I'm sorry, I'm so eager to give you the information that I'm stumbling all over myself trying to give you data. It's due west of Slade Way and it goes up the hill Mullet: But it's separated physically and legally by title from the property below Slade Way which is also owned by Puget Western? Lowe: Absolutely, there's no connection at all between the property down below Slade Way and the property above Slade Way. The only thing that we are dealing with is from Slade Way west to that property. Mullet: Thank you Mr. Lowe. Rants: At this point then we'll begin the public hearing with the City's position first. Yes sir? Lowe: Could 1 have an extra copy from Jane Cantu of Jack Pace's rebuttal to our rebuttal? Rants: Yes, that's fine. Lowe: May 1 have one copy? I asked I know you gave me two but I've got one, two three four five consultants back there. They are trying to share those two copies amongst five people and they're fighting. Rants: Mr. Lowe, 111 have one made up or two made up and delivered to you in the back of the room in a few minutes. 4 Dan Clayton: Just to reiterate, my name if Dan Clayton. I'm an engineering geologist with twenty years of experience with Shannon Wilson here in Puget Sound. Duffie:Sir, would you mind speaking up because I'm having trouble hearing you up here. Clayton: I'm sorry, I'II do it again. 1 would like to provide some clarification in rebuttal to several technical issues that were made by Mr. Lowe's consultants on January 10th. Those issues revolved primarily around the concerns that we have with regards to a deep seeded land slide that we feel is a potential for affecting this property. One that would extend essentially from the base of the hillside as you see it in the drawings behind you, to the -to below the area where Mr. Lowe wants to build homes. The arguments that I'm particularly interested in discussing and providing some clarification revolve around first of all the evidence for the deep seeded landslide that occurred in Shannon Wilson's interpretation in the pre- historic past. It's an ancient feature, and I'm going to discuss why that would be significant. Why should we be dealing with these old things and dwelling on them very much. I'd like to talk about some misunderstandings that may been generated in regards to the stability analysis and the depth of the borings and so forth that were performed by Cascade for Mr. Lowe. I'd like to talk about the significance of the WASHDOT boring you see up there. The 200 footer that Mr. Lowe's consultants spent a fair amount of time discussing last time we were together. And I'd like to clarify the significance in my view of what the off -site conditions are to the stability of the site. And finally, I'd like to reiterate some of the types of information that we feel are necessary in order to properly evaluate whether or not this site it going to be stable and safe for occupation by a number of homes. To that first point dealing with the ancient land slide, Dr. Twelker testified I believe that- had kind of a mixed feeling on it as I understood -he felt that well if it is a landslide it's not where it originally was but he thought maybe it wasn't a landslide. The concept that he forwarded in terms of not being originally where it was, has to do with the erosion of the slope since the time the landslide would actually have formed. So the steep slope you see to the west of the property on the drawing behind you, is the feature we're talking about. In the eyes of a number of geotechnical investigators, Dames Moore, Shannon Wilson, Geoengineers, WASHDOT and also Mr. Lamb in his stability analysis that he presented in March of 1993, that was referred to as an ancient land slide scarp. I think all those investigators had substantial reason to make that interpretation. The feature extends for some 3,000 feet along the hillside, it has, it's sitting at an angle of repose. Dr. Twelker mentioned that when you see something like that you've got to ask why did this form. This hummocking ground below it disturbed ground, disrupted surfaces which accounts for the wetlands that we have on the property. It's a classic earmark of a rotational landslide feature. We have a case example of a similar feature immediately downslope in the 1960 landslide that we talked about earlier which was a deep seeded failure. If you look at the cross section entitled figure 2, you see the orange and yellow slices. The yellow slice there is the 1960 slice and the orange slice is the slice that we are concerned with as a potential deep seeded landslide. The most recent evidence for this feature actually being a landslide comes from Cascades boring logs. If you look at the drawing behind you, you see a number of borings and I appreciate having these drawings, I think they're great. You'll notice the ones sitting around the little house there are all pretty short. Those are the features that the explorations done by Cascade in 1990 and 1991. There were three borings that extended to a maximum of 31 1/2 feet, the other two were about 26, and a number of shallow test pits in the order of 5 feet. In any case there's probably 10 or 12 locations where Cascade did some explorations. All done for geotechnical evaluations and all very useful information for doing foundation types of investigations. But not the kind of stuff that really answers the questions in terms of deep seeded stability. What they did do is they identified a lot of peat on that hillside. On the order of 3 1/2 to 5 footed hillside below the steep slope. The peat is, in terms of how it's formed, it forms in a bog environment, in a wet swampy type of environment. Well you have to ask, how do you develop wet swampy environment on a side of a hill. One real good way to do that would be with a rotational failure. I think the presence of peat there argues very strongly against the idea that a slope has eroded back over the top of it in time because the peat has to form on the surface. It has to form in a 5 0 6 f swampy environment where the organic matter can accumulate. If Dr. Twelker were correct that that slope is eroded backwards over time, there would have been no place for that to form. An estimate for peat formation in western Washington is on the order of an inch every 40 years. We're talking well over a thousand years for that peat to have formed if that estimate is correct. If it's off by an order of magnitude, we're still talking a long time in terms of the development of peat formation. Mr. Joule argued that he thought this was an old excavation based on the way it looked in the basis of hardpan is the slope. Well I'm hard pressed to condemn Cascade's geotechnical borings and test pits when they were out there digging holes and observing peat. And I don't think you can mistake peat for hardpan so I think -Mr. Joule's argument about an excavation certainly doesn't hold up from the respect of there being hardpan. And this feature does extend for some 3,000 feet. And I don't think an excavation would have happened and they would have done that excavation and left a bunch of peat in the ground. Did the peat form since the excavation was made? If that's the case then the excavation was made hundreds of years ago. The arguments don't hold up. The logical conclusion is that there is very definitely a possibility of a landslide there. The explorations are not sufficient to evaluate that possibility. Another piece of evidence, maybe not as strong in my mind, if you look at the handout that we provided you- incidentally attachment one shows the configuration of peat on the hillside as best as I could identify it on a cross section from the three dimensional view from the various explorations done by Cascade. The drawing also shows the depth of the borings that were drilled. We'll talk about that a little more. But if you look at attachment two, there are a couple of squiggly lines there. This is perhaps a little pointy headed but in geotechnical worlds using a split spoon hammer to drive a sampler into the ground is a means of counting the blows of penetration. It's a means of coming up with strength properties for soils that geotechs commonly use. What we see here are two plots. One, the one on the right, is from up on top of the hillside where the ground is unquestionably in place. The one on the left is from down on the flats in the swamp land area. Both of these are in very similar sand materials. There are substantially large differences in the strength properties. There may be other explanations as to why those are different. One of those could be perhaps the borings weren't adequately sampled. I don't know, but we don't have any explanation for this and it hasn't been looked into in terms of the significance. The one explanation that we are left having to question is, could it be because the materials down on the bottom part of the slope have been disturbed? That is the kind response you would see to those soils if in fact they had. Now I'm not trying to say that because we have an old landslide here that this site is automatically unstable. Not at all. What I think is important, these are warning flags that we have to address. We can't just leave them unexplored, unexamined and just say well, we don't think they're important or we don't think they're a deep seeded land slide. Let's not worry about them particularly in the light of a very similar land slide that occurred just down the hill and did a major devastation to a lot of property with a very similar geometry. As far as the stability analysis and the depth of the borings, if we go back to attachment one, in the handout, what I've done is taken a cross section of the site that was provided in Cascade's stability analysis that they performed in March of 93. And I've plotted on that three of their borings just as you see the borings plotted on the drawings behind you. And I've also plotted my interpretation of the depth that I would anticipate of the ancient deep seeded landslide. If in fact it were projected down underneath the site as in fact it would have to be based on the angle of the slope. I think you can see from that drawing that TB1 off to the left is sitting up on the top of the hill high and dry. TB2 and TB3 are down in the area that would be directly above that landslide plane. Neither of them extend far enough to reach it. You might say well, maybe my landslide plane is incorrectly drawn, I certainly don't know. The actual depth of it looks pretty reasonable to me. It's very similar to what Dr. Twelker drew when he first prepared the drawing over here with the orange and yellow. But the fact is what we're really dealing with here is a deep aquifer which has hydrostatic pressure which is what we're afraid of. That's the bug -a -boo in terms of the slope stability of this hillside. And these borings definitely do not reach that deep aquifer. If they do the problems are bigger than they think they are because the water levels are almost right up to the ground level. And so I'm quite convinced that they don't. In fact the Dames Moore boring, as it's been called, actually it's a WASHDOT boring that was drilled by Shannon Wilson in 1964, C 6 shows a confining layer of about 50 feet. And I'II give you an example of where that is in a little bit. So, Mr. Joule in my interpretation of what he said, he thought the stability analysis was deep enough. He thought the borings were deep. Well, you can get into semantics here as to what is deep but in my view these are not deep enough to evaluate the problem that we're worried about on this hillside. If you look at attachment three, which is another rendition of the figure two which on the orange and yellow drawing, this also shows the area that's in green on that drawing is just shown on a cross hatched here. That is the deep seeded stability analysis. The slip surface that was identified by Cascade Geotech. That's certainly a worthy evaluation to look at that hillside in terms of the steep slope coming down on some houses. And I think the results are fine, but that's not the deep seeded stability analysis that we're talking about. The deep one is the gray toned area that extended below the property. The shallow stability analysis that was done by Cascade according to the stability analysis itself, extended to about three feet below the surface, is where the slip plane was. So that's not that either. Mr. Lamb indicated in his preliminary geotechnical report to Mr. Lowe that a stability analysis would have to be done which incorporated off site materials, particularly in light of the 1960 landslide that had occurred. In the verbiage that I've handed out I've sited the reference as to what report that was and where you can find that. In 1990 Mr. Lamb was concerned about off -site features and the possibility of a landslide propagating under the property. Now he has certainly testified that he feels the site is stable and it will be more stable when the place has been developed. I think that's a reasonable assumption, but it hasn't been demonstrated. In the report that he submitted there is no post construction shallow stability analysis. I don't think it's a big problem, and I've expressed that. I certainly would not want to hold up any kind of boundary line on that basis. It comes back to the real issue, Mr. Lamb recognized that some time ago, we recognize that I believe what you received today from Mr. Lamb supports the same notion that there is a potential deep seeded problem here that really hasn't been addressed. And the question comes back to, who's responsibility is it to fix it, or to evaluate it for that matter? Let's talk about the boring. It's 200 feet deep. It was drilled, as I understand it, by Shannon Wilson in 1964 for WASHDOT. There were three pyrometers, or water level measurements measuring tools pipes, extended down into the ground to various levels below the surface. I don't have a record of where those were installed, I suppose we'd have to go to WASHDOT at this point to get that record. Or perhaps Mr. Lowe has that now, I don't know. It's great, we suddenly had soils data right on the east side of the property down to 200 feet. I've never really suggested 200 was necessary. I think that's far below where the problems are. But the soils data hasn't been used. More importantly the boring fully shows the 1964 water level in it and my issue here isn't so much one of soils properties because you can see from the drawing here that there's lots of borings. Probably all those borings have boring logs. I'm delighted that Mr. Lowe has taken the effort to point out all this information and put it in one place. There's a lot of data there that can be evaluated, but what's lacking is ground water information. If you recall that I said, the problem isn't understanding what the soils properties are so much as it is understanding what's happening with the deep aquifer. What's the level in it, is it exerting hydrostatic pressure on the bottom of a confining layer and making that site unstable? That's what needs to be evaluated and no one at least since 1989 has taken a look at that information. In 1989 what they took a look at was down the hill. They we're not concerned with the Hillcrest property at that time. They were concerned with Valley View. And the results indicated that the site was not adequately stable for building a development on that property. So what we are asking is to obtain that type of information, the soils data certainly. Most of that might be in place. We're asking for the water level information as well. So to say there's a soil baring there is great, but if you don't have water level information from it it doesn't do you any good. It might be that you can get that water level information by shooting the top off or finding somebody with a key of whatever, but no one's taken that effort yet. That's not to say that well will be functional, I just don't know, we don't have any information as to whether or not it still works. Rants: You have three minutes left of your twenty minutes. Rants: Mr. Earnst? Rants: You are entering a letter from Puget Western in this matter right now? Is that what you've just done? Beeler:Yes, the letter of January 4th, I only have one copy for the City Clerk. It's a one sentence letter. I don't know what the exhibit numbers are but the City Staff's response to the rebuttal that Mr. Clayton reviewed should be entered as an exhibit as well as this letter. I don't know what numbers we're on but 7 Clayton: OK, I'll just make one more point. I mentioned that the boring has not been used. If you look at attachment four I've made a comparison of the stability analysis that was done as well as the borings. And the log from the 1964 soil boring. If you take some time and compare those, there is no comparison. Ross Earnst: My name is Ross Earnst, I'm the Director of Public Works. I'm also a registered professional civil engineer in the State of Washington. I have about two items I'd like to cover. One of those is the State drainage system, there's a letter attached from the office of the attorney general in February of 1989. There are three points on that back of that letter that I think are very important, and also the first and second paragraphs on the first page. I was going to read those, but I won't go through that. The second item is the City staff, as you're aware, the City does hire professional engineers. At the current time I believe we have six on staff. Myself, the City engineer and four of the senior engineers. We are in the business of, as I like to call it, municipal engineering. In the area of development, we provide recommendations to the responsible official of an engineering nature. We feel in the case of this project that those recommendations will be made on fact and we do not have the facts that are necessary to make a recommendation what to do with this project. Therefore we are agreeing with the Shannon Wilson request. We feel that additional information is made -is necessary for safety of this site. I'll leave the rest of the time for Rick. Rick Beeler: Thank you. On page 36 of your bound packet, the blue one, is TMC18.45.080(e3), which talks about the requirements for demonstration to alter areas of potential geologic instability. There's two tests there. One that there's not evidence of past instability in the vicinity, and that there's a quantitative analysis that shows there's no significant risk. Or, if geologic instability exists in the vicinity impact is mitigated and slope stability is not decreased. Staff has asked all along that this be shown. The bottom line here is that Mr. Lowe and his team has not provided you with the quantitative deep seeded stability analysis showing that the property will be safe, meets those two tests of the TMC I just quoted. Instead all the information that we have indicates that there is instability at a deep level and that only Mr. Lowe bears the burden of proof that he complies with those requirements of the TMC. He alone bears that burden. He has six lots now of record. He can build on those now without other approval other than a building permit. His boundary line adjustment is for six lots for him to build single family homes on the property that he says he is making payments on. The letter I will submit into the record at this time from January 4th from Puget Western states that he has an option to purchase and that's all that Puget Western is saying that he has. People's lives are at stake on this property. And make no mistake about it, we're only asking him to do the analysis, to prove that this is a safe piece of property for him to develop those homes. People are going to be living there. Ask yourselves, would you, with the information you have before you, be willing to sign your name to the building permits or any other development permits and assume the liability for the risk to the lives of those future homeowners? Do you have enough certainty in your mind that Staff, in asking themselves that same question, erred instead by asking for proof that the proposal is safe? Do you have a firm conviction that all of your Staff of registered engineering and planning professionals in addition to Shannon Wilson, erred in asking for Mr. Lowe to prove that his development was safe? I think that clearly you'll find that we did not err, the Planning Commission did. Thank you. 8 C 1 Robertson: Could you read the letter in its entirety? Rants: That would solve that. Beeler:Sure. This was actually written to Mr. Lowe. It says, "To whom it may concern, Mr. Leroy Lowe had the option to purchase the property at S. 160th and Slade Way, Tukwila Washington known as Hillcrest." Signed sincerely, C.R. Cosey, President Puget Western. Duffle: Rick at this time he has made reservation to buy that property? Is that correct? Beeler: He has the option to purchase. Duffle: But he hasn't did it yet? Beeler:The letter doesn't say that he's purchased the property, it says that he has an option. Rants: Thank you Rick. Mr. Lowe we used 25 minutes, you will be allowed the same length of time. George Lamb: Good evening, I'm George Lamb. I'm the president of Cascade Geotechnical. We're a consulting engineering firm in the technical engineering area and have been since 1974. I've been practicing as a principal in local engineering firms since 1966. Been licensed in the State of Washington since 1959. I've only had a brief review of Shannon Wilson's most recent report, it was given to me this evening. And I've listened to Mr. Clayton's comments this evening. I confess I'm -as I said in some of my earlier comments -I'm somewhat mystified by the position that the wide respected firm of Dames Moore's taken on this and that they have joined what appears to be simply a frenzied effort to find some reason to block this development which would improve the stability of the hillside and would not certainly not endanger any one's life as it is presently proposed. Some items I think in the comments and in the report need some clarification. The report is on Shannon Wilson letterhead. This is the recent one here dated February 7, 1994. In a firm with probably a dozen or twenty professional engineers, I think it's significant that none of them signed this. The Shannon Wilson report and Mr. Clayton's testimony returns to the previous position that the slide on the adjacent property, below the City right -of -way of Slade Way, simply has to be solved by Mr. Lowe in order for Mr. Lowe to proceed. There are some items in here on page eight that I'm afraid I'II have to addresses directly here. I had hoped not to do this but I'm really offended by the slight to our engineering stamps that are taken so lightly. We're the only people, I'm the only person in this room who's likely to lose my livelihood over this with the possible exception of Mr. Lowe. I have hundred's of clients. I don't go to hundred's of these meetings, normally I don't bother with them. I don't go this far. This is a situation where this man with a piece of property that he's trying to develop, it's going to improve the site, is simply being blocked by Staff. No one else is risking anything. City Staff aren't going to lose their job if he's wrongly denied this operation. No one's going to lose their elective office, no one's going to lose their appointed office to the Planning Commission. The only person that's going to be out of work if my report is wrong is me. Mr. Clayton's not, he doesn't have a Washington license and anything. No one else in the whole shop is going to. City engineers, and City planning director isn't, no one else is going to lose their ticket. The guy who's sticker is on it is me. And I have as I say hundred of clients, many of who I refuse to do these things for because I don't plan to risk my ticket for people who aren't going to do what their told. I don't plan to extend my livelihood out on this. These are not my normal -this is not my normal pattern. I'm doing it in this case because a perfectly sound engineering response by me is being portrayed as some sort of risk of life. This is preposterous. We have said that the slope that you can see up here above the little house is possibly a landslide scarp. We didn't say it was, I'm not sure if it is or isn't. Neil Twelker's been around a long time, he's got his Ph.D. from Harvard and he knows a great deal of things. He has indicated that there are a couple of 9 other possibilities. He's very convincing. The orange slice that's been identified over here by Mr. Clayton, representing the area that he is suggesting, represents the major ancient slide. You'll notice it stops short of the Lowe property but it does include Slade Way. Now the Shannon Wilson report dated October of 1992, has a similar arrangement to this and it shows that movements were noted at something in the order of perhaps twenty feet deep. In an area well out here beyond Slade Way. The slide that's noted by that is indicated on Shannon Wilson's report October 1992 as being area that was indicated by slope indicators installed by Dames Moore. Slope indicators were invented by Mr. Shannon Mr. Wilson. They were occupied they've been manufactured by a subsidiary or subsidiaries since it's been on Shannon Wilson's. According to them, or as near as I can extrapolate, this area here stops well short of Slade Way. This yellow area represents much more than what is being shown. We also heard some talk about the 200 foot boring and about whether there is soil information available on it or not. This over here is -oh, thank you -all right we'll stay on the record here. The 200 foot boring as you see here was put in the west ditch line as near as we can tell of Slade Way. It's called WASHDOT 1A. Mr. Clayton's indicated that it was installed by Shannon Wilson. He seemed to be concerned about whether there were categories of soil in there or not. I refer him to his October 1992 report which shows logging material all the way down, showing a June '64 water level in the great gray silt. Below that is a silty sand and gravel which I think is the pressurized zone he's concerned about. It then follows more than another 100 feet down and end in a gray sandy silt. The areas are thoroughly documented throughout this. Again, this is a boring done for WASHDOT by Shannon Wilson and I don't think we can ignore the facts what were there. Shannon Wilson's not going to make a trash boring, I don't think WASHDOT is either. Mr. Clayton, if I understand his testimony correctly this evening, has indicated the site has been stable for about 1,000 years. This is verified by the dead straight Douglas Firs in the areas and a number of other things. I'm talking about the site that Mr. Lowe is presently applying for a boundary line adjustment on. The same position again comes up that the adjacent properties unstable, that is the property beyond the City right -of -way, and the -and no one as far as I know has indicated yet that Leroy Lowe's property has ever been unstable in historical times. Not since the time of the European settlement has there been any movement on that property that anyone has cared to comment about. Slade Way is a separate property and it is not going to go -the Lowe property is not going to go anywhere until Slade Way is gone. There has been some discussion that Tukwila is going to sit and fold it's hands and watch Slade Way with it's fire access and all the other things, slide down the hill. And that therefore Mr. Lowe has to stop this. Mr. Lowe doesn't have to stop it. Mr. Lowe can go broke tomorrow morning or quite tomorrow morning or decide he'll sit on hit property until everyone comes to their senses. In any case, the City of Tukwila or someone, WASHDOT, someone is going to wind up fixing Slade Way. Slade Way is not going to be permitted to go out. I don't believe that you're all going to sit and watch Slade Way with all its utilities, its fire access, its access to properties, go out. I don't believe you're going to expose the City to a liability of the property owners that are going to be isolated by this or all the other things. That's simply not going to happen. We heard a lot about the semantics of this and that from Mr. Clayton and I think that's exactly what's happened here. The semantics are what's hanging this thing up all the way through. It's not concerns about stability. The question is simply whether the Staff of this City can make a decision and whether or not it matches City policy made by the elected officials and the appointed Planning Commissioners, whether or not that's the case, whether everyone's going to back them up on it. And that is not in my opinion, and I'll separate my engineering opinion out here from my personal opinion, but as a citizen I'd like to think that my elected officials are the people who are going to make those judgments. The City, in my opinion should heed Shannon Wilson's recommendations where they direct themselves to the City. Shannon Wilson advise the City of Tukwila, they should jump all over WASHDOT to get those drains fixed. If WASHDOT was recalcitrant they should try and monitor what was left and fix what was left. Failing that they should take some efforts to fix Slade Way. This is their recommendation in their report and that was signed also by Mr. Clayton. No one disagrees the development will improve the stability of the site. It's zoned for 13 lots, the proposal reduces it to five buildable lots. There is no risk of life and limb on this. There may be 10 concerns by they're pretty far out and the only person with responsibility- -the person they're going to come for with the torches and the rope is me. I'm the only one who has a sticker on that thing that says, here, this is the way you should go. And I'm the one they're going to come after, not the City Council, not the city engineer, not the Staff, not anybody in the clerical department, they're going to come after me. And 1 don't give out my approval of these things casually. And I'm extremely annoyed that someone would imply that for what little money I've gotten out of this five lot project, I'm going to sell my livelihood. I don't have any intention of doing that. I've been at it for thirty years, I haven't sold my soul yet, I'm not about to start now. I welcome any questions on this. Rants: Steve. Mullet: I'm having a little problem with the way this whole issue is going back and forth. It seems everybody keeps talking about the issue. From the deep boring on the WASHDOT 1A, is there information from the boring of that that would tell something about the ancient landslide which appears to be a concern that the City has? Lamb: There appears to be yes. There certainly appears to be. Mullet: And does it confirm or deny if there was a land slide there? Lamb: On the Lowe property? It doesn't say anything about whether there was one on the Lowe property or not. This is the -it leads strong indication that this is where some of the water is coming from that is causing the slide downhill. It's no clear indication at all. Mullet: So it addresses the water problem not a slide, not an ancient land slide slip problem? Lamb: Exactly, through that area, no it does not address that. Mullet: OK, there is another boring, the D &M boring number four which is a hundred feet down, does that go down into the area where the supposed landslide is? Lamb: It goes again, down into the area where the pressurized water apparently is, or is said to me, and it shows interestingly enough, this is D &M four, is that the one? It shows a indication that there is a slide movement at that point which -I don't have a scale with me on this -it looks like it's perhaps 20 feet below the ground surface. Let me- -thank you Mr. I'm not going to try and scale this answer here because I'm not sure I can, but the movement is somewhere in this area here for the Dames Moore number four hole. The Dames Moore number one hole down here shows a movement at a -it's something in the order of 25 feet. So the boring, the movement plane is about here on the Dames Moore number four. As we come down here to Dames Moore number one, the boring is somewhat further down but it's a little hard for me right here to tell exactly how far. But again we're talking about down in here. Now for me drawing a circular failure or a linear failure through here I get everything stopping somewhat short of Slade Way. Again, Shannon Wilson's report of October 1992 shows some movements in this area here right near the east side of Slade Way. Which again would indicate there is indeed movement below Slade Way which we all know we can see that without getting out of our cars. Robertson: I have a follow -up question which might help with as far as with D &M boring number four, could you show where the water was potentially discovered? Lamb: In number four I don't see a water level on it. On number one the water level is just above the what's indicated here is silty sand and gravel which I believe Shannon Wilson has indicated as a water bearing -the source of the water that's causing a problem down below. 11 Robertson: On that map, where would that approximately be for the D &M boring one? Lamb: Just a moment, let me point it out here. here for the water level. Robertson: So let me follow -up with this. If you put your finger back up there, in WASHDOT 1A, the boring potentially found water at this level. And in the D &M boring number four, no water was discovered in the 100 foot level? Lamb: It doesn't say whether they found any or not, it doesn't show it on their drawing. Robertson: Would a report like this be standard format for -when one boring would not show a water level and the other would? Is that an unusual circumstance? Lamb: I think they're two separate reports, in fairness to everybody on that. They are two separate reports and they might ?9999. I think where you're dealing with slides, particularly pressurized water that you're normally going to show the water table and you're normally going to come back and get it later. Am I coming through to the report? (L Robertson: Without using this paper we have before us, from your historical perspective of the Dames Moore boring number four, was water discovered in that boring? Lamb: There's no indication of it, I don't want to second guess, I would assume there was. I don't know why it wasn't shown or anything else. Mullet: While you're up there, have you provided an analysis based on this information that you've gotten from all these borings which -this is the most overbored site in the City from all testimony. Have you provided any kind of an analysis of this to the City? Which seems to be one of the things they're asking about. Lamb: Yes we have, we've provided an analysis that deals with the Lowe property itself. We've provided on Mullet: You have not provided one that deals with the other Lamb: With the property outside the Lowe property, no we have not. Let me sketch that on the, or wave my arms on it -just a moment. We've provided one which dealt with this hillside, a failure of this sort, we dealt with one which dealt with this sort of failure, we've not dealt with a failure that is coming down here. Again, the evidence from the past borings, and there have been an awful lot, nobody has come up with the notion that movement have extended clear across Slade Way except in this purely speculated sense that somebody when all this fails it may go across Slade Way. There is no indication in historical times, that any movement has ever crossed the present alignment of Slade Way. Lots of movement down here. Movement down here that we can go look at right now. And this is one of the reasons that I'm very reluctant to take Mr. Lowe's money to go out and say, yes, by golly that hillside down below has moved in the past. Everyone knows it. Or yes, parts of it are still moving. Again, you don't have to get out of the car, you can look at it, you can see that it's still moving. The City knows it's moving. Slade Way is suffering some movement here, it's suffering more movement, if I can come out of the plane here, around here where the -after Slade Way has turned. This is right down the middle of a pretty decent slide. Pardon me, I've got the directional movement wrong here, it's supposed to go this way here. It's a pretty decent little slide. And yea, it's moving. I don't need to do borings, I don't need to do calculations or anything else to get a factor of safety of a hillside that's already in motion. I can say it's just a little bit under one. That's really doesn't require much analysis. So yea, there is movement down there and yes it's involving Slade Way. And no, I don't think it's superfluous to let Slade Way go out. I don't think that's going to happen. If they manage to shut the Hillcrest building down this situation will remain exactly the same. And somewhere along the line someone's going to have to stop that because they aren't going to have this 12 service road here which provides fire service and water and access from going out. They aren't going to have a whole bunch of property owners up hill losing property values. Excuse me, I haven't been watching the clock. Rants: You have five minutes. Mullet: We've been detracting you from your time limit any way. But I'm still trying to get at the core of this discussion here. It seems to me that the City is saying there's a deep seeded slide area which no matter what you do at the surface, if it goes the whole things going with your surface with it your five feet down, your fifteen feet down with your core. And you're saying that yes there might be something down there but you think it's irrelevant to putting houses on the surface, is that Lamb: They haven't got anybody to say that yet. Mullet: I think that's what they're trying to do is get somebody to say that on your side of the road. Lamb: They haven't got anybody to say that there is presently any danger to the Lowe property that can possibly occur without Slade Way failing first. Mullet: It's not a question of Slade Way, as I see it. If this which is attachment one of the report or the other which you briefly saw, and this one which is attachment three, shows the deep seeded slip. If that whole thing goes, that is under your proposed property also. And is that what the City is asking you to examine to see if that is really there or not? Lamb: No one has said yet that that is going to cause a problem, and I don't think it is. The evidence that they presented and the evidence in the Shannon Wilson report in October of '92, shows that the -let me go over and get it on this The evidence from their October 1992 report is up here some distance out and they don't have it shown, but some distance away from Slade Way. You can see a movement about where this break occurs here; about where the break of the yellow and the orange is. That's showing -this is a clever little gadget that Shannon Wilson invented year ago and they put a down and Mr. Clayton can give you the details I'm sure. They shoot a piece of metal a little core runs down it and tells you where movements have occurred or will occur. They've clocked movement right about here on this hill, the line between the yellow and the orange here. And down here further at D &M boring number one, they spot another. And I'm willing to buy that for current movement. And if there's some historical possibility of movement along this I haven't eliminated that possibility from my mind yet, but there's no indication that that moved since Columbus sailed and there's no indication that it's going to unless it's activated by some movement down here which will first set off the smoke alarm of Slade Way. I don't think there's no question there has been a landslide down here -no question it was stopped. There's no question that it started up again, and there's not much question I've heard about what the reasons are. Everybody seems to agree on that, Shannon Wilson, and Dan myself and everybody else. There doesn't seem to be further a need any disagreement. But this green property up here has not ever yet been involved in anything like this. Mullet: Would could possibly cause the orange section to just take off and slide? Lamb: After the yellow Mullet: It's your opinion that that orange can't move unless the yellow moves. Lamb: I don't think it will move Mullet: And we're not talking the yellow moves and 15 seconds later the orange moves? /0' 13 Lamb: No, these things are not like snow avalanches. They're -you could be walking across them in the middle of a catastrophic slide, it's not (unclear), but you could do it. They're more movements than that. I think this is -the question here isn't what's been shown in the report by geoengineers and Dames Moore and WASHDOT and Shannon Wilson and ourselves. None of them justify talking about a failure in modern times with any immediacy, which is going to follow this line between the uncolored area and the orange area. Ekberg: Mr. Mayor, I'd like to ask one more question before we put him back on the clock if that's OK. Rants: All right. Ekberg: How does hydraulic pressure work into a slide coefficient? Lamb: The section that's shown on the October 92 section and the one that's been fairly well discussed here, shows that there's a layer of sand and gravel coming down here like so. This is an area, which according to what little information I've got here and according to the documentation, is actually pressurized. There's actually water under pressure in this sand and gravel that flows pretty readily through. Down here what we have basically is a sand and gravel is stopped off by a few overlying materials. It can't escape. So the water can escape so that this pressure is building up. This pressure is lifting this yellow material, reducing its resistance along the slide by causing it, and allowing it to start to move. And this is fairly common, the upward flow and the pressure. Mr. Clayton had mentioned this pressurized aquifer that we didn't drill down the hill. Which we didn't because so many other people have. We know where it is and we know partially what it does. And if it's left alone it will indeed lift this guy and let it slide. I would drilled into it and got some more out of it and made it back down so that pressure is no longer making this thing move. It's very much like a water or air bearing if you've seen some of those. Ekberg: So we know the existence of this hydraulic pressure along this slide plane. Lamb: I'm pretty confident it's there. I haven't identified it myself, we're dealing with everybody in the firm. Ekberg: What tests or speculation has there been regarding a hydraulic pressure along this potential slide plane? Lamb: As far as I know there hasn't been any because the level, the -again in the October 92 drawing that Shannon Wilson produced, this -I'm trying to sketch this as well as I can with my fingers -it runs right up through here like that. It runs right under this. One would think that if the orange piece were going to go anywhere it would have had plenty of opportunity to do so. Overlaying throughout is what's indicated here as a gray or very brown silt which often acts like a pretty good and keeps that stuff down. And the observation in July of 64 in DH1A of the ground water, is somewhat above that pressurized layer. And of course as the hill goes down, as it slopes down this way the pressure gets greater because the gravity builds it up. As far as I know, no one's speculated this has moved in historic times and the fact that this thing cuts right across it indicates that it's not a perfect spot for it to do that. Ekberg: Thank you. Lamb: I'II get off here so someone else can talk, excuse me. Rants: All right. Mr. Lowe do you have another member who wishes to speak? (talking in background) 14 Rants: Well your hope is correct but I've lost track I'II tell you that. Dennis Joule: My name's Dennis Joule. I spoke last time and I'm not sure you want me to go through the speech again but anyway you should have my record. I'm going to go fast so Dr. Twelker can sum up. I think that from what you've heard, I concur with most of that. And I think I want to just spend a short time just going through quickly the concept of the slides again then I'm going to leave. I'm going to use this guy here. I want to go back -in reading through the rebuttal, it seems as though the Shannon Wilson data is relying very heavily on this upper area up here. This sand which they're calling scarp. And if you look at this at the map you can see how far it goes along. They refer to it as being about 3,000 feet long. And if you then go back and look at the colors, the yellow zone is an active slide. That's a slide that we have data on and we know where it is and we know what it's been doing. We have a pretty good idea that we know what it's cause was and over the last thirty years we have a pretty good idea, we know how to stop it. The orange is hypothetical. People keep talking like there's a slide there. We don't know that there's a slide there. It's just that somebody's coming back and saying we see this big area here and we think that's a scarp. And I've given some idea of how -I'm not saying that it's not a scarp or that it is a scarp. If it's a scarp by everybody's reports, it's an ancient scarp, probably thousands of years old. It's not active, we don't have any evidence that it's active. And we don't have any evidence that it's in danger. It's strictly a line that somebody says, in order to say we know we have a failure here, and we think maybe this is the top of something that happened a long time ago, we're going to draw a line through here and make it look right. Because as engineers and scientists we have to try to make things add up, otherwise we know that we'd go back here we'd see nothing and say that something doesn't fit. There is some evidence to say OK, this may have been a historic scarp. I gave, you mentioned that a lot of reasons why, contradicting some of the things that I said, I said that while standing out there on the site there was a lot of evidence that there may have been some man made excavations. I'm not saying that's the only cause. The answer was, well then they much have dug for 3,000 feet because this goes for 3,000 feet. Well, you'd have to look at it and if it's an ancient slide, something that happened many years ago, you can see that there's no concern over 3,000 feet through the Tukwila area. We're only suddenly concerned with this area. So I don't think that you'd find that in any of the reports that there is any concern over this deeper area. And some of the questions say, well did you go down here and dig down here? Did you actually evaluate this face? That really doesn't exist. That's a hypothetical face. When the Cascade report was written they do evaluate things. They look at the possibility of a deep slide. They look at this information. When you go back and you do a slope stability analysis, and that's sort of an overrated statement because what you're going to do in a slope stability analysis is to go in here and you're going to start by trying to assume where it's going to fail. And you may do hundreds of different assumption lines. You've got to then go in and determine what you think the sheer strength is at that 3005 tape one ended (some transcript lost) Joule: hill is simply going to be the soils ability to withhold the soil versus the weight of the soil trying to go downhill. All that information is a lot of sort of hocus -pocus and that is that we'll go out and we could do -if you did a hundred borings out here and you did all these samples and you did laboratory tests and you determined sheer strength and water tables and everything, you're still going to come up with a very sort of hypothetical, "I think it's going to go." In a lot of cases it's always humorous to people that are in the industry because you'll sit out and you'll read somebody has done a study and it says, "this looks very unstable and it never moves. Then the next day somebody will say this has a safety factor of 1.62 and it fails the next day. It's a very iffy thing we do. In fact it always kind of makes a joke. When I was reading some of the reports, when they start taking these stability's to the hundreds of a decimal place, it's impossible to go that far. So anyway, we have an area that we know is a problem. This orange area is not a known. The orange area is just a line that's drawn. This potential area up here may have been a scarp, again have been, ancient not 15 current, not active. So I wanted to kind of get, put things in perspective. No known active area ...(unclear). Rants: Thank you. Neil Twelker: I am Neil Twelker, consulting engineer, registered professional engineer in the State of Washington. I'm going to make my remarks very very brief, just a very few minutes. Mr. Clayton devoted five or six pages of his rebuttal to the question of our mutual differences, of interpretation of the scarp on the Hillcrest property. And since he devoted so much time to it I can't just let it pass. I have to put my two bits worth in here. This is a something like a twenty foot high slope of sugar sand at the angle of repose which means that if you were to go out there and climb up it, you would knock part of it down. If a wild animal scampers up and down grains of sand inevitably cascade down towards the bottom. Water is pouring out all the way along this slope, constantly, 365 days a year. Mr. Clayton would have us believe that it's been there in the present state and present location for a thousand years. If that were true, who's worried about it for the next 100 years? But let's say that it is -it has been there for a thousand years. Why worry about it. I don't think it has, I think that anything that's obviously that unstable is actually in a state of retreat. And the first thing I would do if I were developing that property for Mr. Lowe would be to get in there, put some drainage in, reshape it at a cost of maybe $5,000 and make it stable forever. That's not the point. The point here is that we're talking about a hillside, a big hillside. Not that little thing up there, we're talking about a very large hillside. And we're only talking about one hillside. And this hillside has a key and I'm going to show you where that key is. (walked away from microphone to exhibits) Here is what we don't want to forget. This is Slade Way, Slade Way that's the important thing right here. And that's the thing we're trying to protect. And down here someplace is the key. Why is it the key? It's because in 1960, some people came in here and took some soil away from this area. And they caused the whole hillside to become unstable. That was what happened, and then some other people came in here and they drilled all of these holes and they studied this thing and they decided that this was the key and this is where they did the work that fixed it. And the fix worked for over thirty years. And now it needs a little bit of maintenance. So what's the answer? Come back to the key and do something. Now, up here is Slade Way. Slade Way is threatened. Slade Way, yes or no, that's the question you have to answer. Not that we need a whole lot of deep borings, do we want Slade Way, yes or no? What's the future of Slade Way? Mr. Beeler said a little while ago, ask yourself if- -would you buy property if you knew it was being threatened by a big landslide. Well, I have another question for you. Ask yourself, if you knew that the City of Tukwila was going to work on this continued stability of Slade Way, knowing that for over thirty years they have had the answer to how to keep it stable, would you be willing to live up beyond it in a place where no earth instability had occurred in recorded history? So the question comes down here, is the City of Tukwila going to do something about Slade Way, or is it not? I have asked that question on several different occasions directly to Jack Pace and to Ron Cameron. Neither one of them will reply. Last time I asked Jack Pace he looked directly at a point 15 feet over to my right and 15 feet below my eye level, and said I will not answer that question. Now, the City Council has the answer to the question tonight. If the City council says that Leroy Lowe must study the whole hillside or he doesn't get a chance for the thing he's asking, then the City Council says, we have no intention, the City of Tukwila has no intention of doing anything about Slade Way. We're going to let it go right down the hill. If the City Council says yes Slade Way is our responsibility then Slade Way remains stable. And if Slade Way is stable, it's perfectly obvious all you have to do is look at that drawing, if Slade Way is stable, look at any of the exhibits in the room, listen to anybody who has spoken here, if Slade Way is stable, Hillcrest property is no problem. What does Mr. Clayton have to say about it? Fortunately he is on record in his letter to Tukwila, November 23, 1992, Mr. Clayton says Rants: Sir, would you bring your remarks to conclusion please, the City Clerk has kept time and 16 Twelker: Yes, I am on my last sentence right now. Mr. Clayton says, with regards to the potential for deep seeded sliding" for deep seeded sliding, that's what were talking about here. "With regard to a potential for deep seeded sliding, it is our opinion that the most productive approach the City can take to improve this hillside stability would be to encourage WASHDOT to rehabilitate their hillside drainage system." Where are all the recommendations for ongoing geotechnical studies, for ground water monitoring and everything else that Mr. Clayton has recommended that Mr. Lowe should do? When he talks to the City he says "just call WASHDOT, we know how to do this." Mr. Clayton knows and I know the only thing I really marvel about is Mr. Clayton's ability to talk out of both sides of his mouth at the same time. Thank you very much and I'll answer any questions. Rants: Dennis? Robertson: I think it's probably inappropriate to make personal attacks on people so I would appreciate if you wouldn't do it again. Twelker: If that (unclear). I apologize. Robertson: Thank you. Rants: Does Council have any questions of the applicant? Thank you sir. Does council have any questions of the appellants? Which in this case is Staff. Robertson: Yes sir, I have one. Mr. Clayton? The paper you presented today on page eight, you have a copy of it there? Clayton: Yes sir. Robertson: I'm a little -on page eight on the second paragraph you talk about stability factor of 1.24. That's basically for the property that's on the east side of Slade Way, is that correct? Rants: Joan? /c) Clayton: Yes that's correct. I think those are shown on, I think they are on one of these two drawings. Maybe on one that was submitted previously. Robertson: OK, I'm just establishing a point. A little farther down, actually in the bottom on the last paragraph, you talk about a stability factor of 1.04 to 1.16 for the Hillcrest property. Is -I'm puzzled. Clayton: OK, I can explain that if you like. Those are numbers which are included in Cascades stability analysis report. It's for a very different feature. I think these numbers were the ones that were assigned or they came up with for the shallow stability analysis they did. I don't find those particularly alarming numbers frankly. Robertson: Because they can be.... Clayton: They can be fixed with the proper drainage system. Now, maybe Mr. Lamb did the stability analysis post construction. It wasn't shown in his reports so I don't know. But I think the post construction, in my view, it ought to improve those numbers substantially. Robertson: That's OK, you answered my question. I was puzzled about the difference between the two, thank you. 17 Councilmember Joan Hernandez: I don't know who to ask the question of, but I would like someone to show me where the six buildable Tots are and where the property that's attached to the option. (Talking in background) Rants: No, Rick, Jack I mean, do you want to show her where the six buildable lots are? And what was the rest of your question? Hernandez: And then the property that's attached to the option to purchase, the additional property. Rants: This is all under option to purchase. Hernandez: OK, all the six buildable lots are in that parcel also? OK. Jack Pace: There's six lots of record here. These are the lots of record and this is what he's proposing. Robertson: That's what the boundary line adjustment is, to change that configuration. Pace: Right. So if you look at this configuration now, these are the six lots. And there will be six lots when he gets done. This drawing doesn't show this triangle here which would be right about here. Hernandez: And that's all under the option to purchase? Pace: Yes, that's what the letter we have states. Hernandez: OK, thank you. Rants: Any further questions? Mullet: Yes, I have a question of Jack as long as he's up here. Why is -this is a property line adjustment issue.... Pace: Boundary line... Mullet: Boundary line adjustment. Why is, at this time, are we dealing with the geological stability of this property? For a simple boundary line adjustment when we're not dealing with building permits, I would assume it would come at that time rather than at this time. What Pace: When you passed the Sensitive Areas Ordinance you required short plates, subdivisions, and boundary line adjustments to comply with the Sensitive Areas Ordinance. So the Ordinance states that when reviewing boundary lines, we have to make sure they comply up front. The second reason is, this was platted prior when it was part of King County. These are old lots of record. When we approve a boundary line adjustment, under Washington State law, we're saying those lots are buildable and safe. So we're assuming some risk and responsibilities when we approve a different configuration of boundary lines. Mullet: There was a comment made that if he hadn't gone for boundary line adjustments, he could apply for building permits on the old lots. Is that true? Without going through all this? Pace: Under the Sensitive Areas Ordinance, if we were to come in on the existing Tots of record, we require some of the same type of information for each lot as required by the 18 sensitive areas ordinance. The key here is that you're changing the configuration of these lots and that the City then is approving them as a buildable site. We're the ones that sign the boundary line adjustment and the recorder takes that boundary line and verifies it. Rants: Any further questions? All right, then I'm going to close the hearing on this portion. I believe what remains then is for findings and conclusions on the part of the Council. Am I correct? 1 Cohen: That's correct. Council can make an oral decision if they like today. Rants: They can give it this evening, they can postpone it, they can -their decision to do what they want. All right.... Robertson: If you close it then we can no longer ask questions of anybody, if I understand this correctly. Cohen: That's correct. Robertson: Or receive any additional information. Cohen: That's correct. Rants: Does the Council wish it closed? Do you wish to continue with it at another time? Person in Audience: Is this a public hearing? Rants: No sir this is a quasi judicial hearing. Person in Audience: Isn't it a continuation of a public hearing from about a month ago? Cohen: This is a quasi judicial hearing which was different. At that time since it was advertised as a public hearing citizens were given an opportunity to comment although they weren't didn't have any legal right to comment, the Council and the Mayor allowed everyone to comment. Ground rules that they set down was to allow everyone an opportunity to speak for five minutes. However that was not going to be the case when it came to rebuttal. Council very clearly said that the appellant and the applicant would be given an opportunity to respond in rebuttal, but citizens would not. Rants: Council's pleasure, how do you wish to go forward? Robertson: I'm prepared to discuss it after a short break. Rants: You wish to take a short break first? Robertson: I would close the public hearing first though, not the public hearing the quasi judicial hearing. Rants: You wish to have it closed. That means your questions of Staff are through, you are.... Do I have concurrence on this from the Council? The hearing is closed, now I will entertain a motion for a break. So moved, is there a second? (seconded). Cohen: Perhaps you'll want to recess for a little bit longer, there's some materials for Baker that it would be a good time to review before you start that. Rants: We will recess for ten minutes. Will that be satisfactory? Is there a second? "seconded) All in favor say "aye" (unanimous), those opposed (none opposed). Recess 8:47 p.m.) Rants: Call the meeting back to order please. (9:03 p.m.) Robertson: Would it be appropriate to put a motion on the table then proceed with discussion, or to have discussion first? Rants: Is there a second? Ekberg: I'II second that. Rants: Moved and seconded, discussion? 19 Rants: I believe that a motion on the table is appropriate then discussion to follow that if that's the way the Council wishes to proceed. Robertson: I would like to make the following motion. I would like to move to reverse the Planning Commission's decision. I believe the Planning Commission erred in opting their opinion that this pacific class three and four hillside did not need deep seeded testing to document hillside stability. No conclusive documentation, only an opinion was provided to demonstrate what could be found in a testing. Without the testing in this instance, no further conclusions can be drawn regarding the stability of the hillside. Not to require the testing incurs an undo risk to the future residents of Hillcrest, surrounding property owners, and the City in general. That's a verbatim quote out of page three of the Staff report and the motion is to reverse the Planning Commission's decision. Robertson: I have a whole set of points to make. I'd like to start with the discussion of the SAO. The SAO on page two of the Staff's report which is unnumbered in the book we have. It's the Staff report dated December 27, 1993. There are two parts. On TMC 1 8.45.080(e3) (a1). The first says, "there's no evidence of past instability or earth movement in the vicinity of the proposed development. In quantitative analysis the slope stability indicates no significant risk to the proposed development or surrounding properties. Or, double i, the area of potential geologic instability can be modified or the project can be designed so that any potential impact to the project and surrounding properties is eliminated, slope stability is not decreased and the increase in service water discharge or sedimentation should not decrease slope stability." The things that are important in that part of the law, I think first off is the between section i and section double i. The second part, in "1" it says, no significant risk. Significant really is not given. It doesn't say a probability of 95% with a standard deviation of anything. It just says significant risk. So that really comes down to our decision as to what is significant. And I think when I discuss this further what I'm going to try and show is what really are we trying to prevent. If we talk about risks, you're trying to prevent something from happening, something bad. Mr. Lamb talked earlier about the risk of losing his engineer stamp. That's certainly a serious issue and his livelihood and his professional pride. But I would point out that that's not the risk we're trying to prevent. The risk -and that was not what the SAO is all about. The risk we're trying to prevent is a risk to the life and the health and the property of the citizens of Tukwila. And that is by far the most serious part of this. Mr. Clayton in the Planning Commission minutes on page eight of this same document, on October... Mullet: Is that one of the numbered pages? There are some numbered, in the bottom right hand corner. Robertson: Yea, I'm trying to find it here. Page eight. Mr. Clayton said on the last paragraph on page eight in the Planning Commission minutes October 14, 1993, he said there are two issues. One there is a potential for a shallow landslide, and two there is a potential for a deep landslide comparable to what has occurred down the slope. He goes on to describe the hillside quite a bit, but I think that right there it focuses on two issues. One the shallow one, and the deep seeded danger. No one contests that the analysis done to the shallow one wasn't sufficient. That's the issue at all. What the Planning Commission dealt 1 1 20 with and what we're dealing with is a possibility of a slide that might occur because of a deep seeded failure. And the issue, real simple is, there does not appear to be any data that would allow us to decide whether it is dangerous or not dangerous. And that's what the Staff and Mr. Clayton asks for. I want to go on to one more point. On page -I need to get my notes in order -the question that was in my mind was why would the -other than the costs -why would there be a reason not to do this particular analysis? Well, this whole thing is more serious than just the potential cost of the extra engineering analysis. In the SAO, 18.45.060 procedures paragraph three, denial of use or development. "A use of development will be denied if it's determined by the DCD director that the applicant cannot insure the potential dangers and costs to future inhabitants of the development, adjacent and local properties, and Tukwila, are minimized and mitigated to an acceptable level." What this analysis really leads to is a decision the DCD director has to make. Is there a danger or not to future inhabitants of this property to the City in general, and the property around it? It's not just adding more engineering data so we can have more studies, it's to come to a final decision, should or should not this building permit be denied -will be applied for later. It is a very serious issue. If I go to Shannon Wilson report from Mr. Clayton on page 83 of this blue book, page 82 and 83, there's a series of comments here. Again, it explains why the City's position and why they wanted the extra analysis. And this is back in May 5th in '93. Our primary concern -and I'II read--"our primary concern with this is that there are no borings that extend deep enough to intercept the deep confining strata or the underlying confined aquifer which was a primary cause of land sliding immediately east of the site." On the other page, on page 83, it says "because the stability analysis report only addresses the potential for sliding of the steep north trending slope in the center of the property, and ignores the potential significance of a deeper seeded slide, we believe it would be inappropriate at this time to critically review the stability analysis that have been performed." What he's saying again is he wants more data, he wants an analysis looking at the deep seeded problem. In the testimony we had on January 10th, when Mr. Clayton was speaking on page 14 at the top, again he said, "so regardless, I think the point is about this particular feature is we don't know, no one has gone out and investigated it." So farther down it says, "so it remains simply that, an unknown. That's an annoying feature but I think my greatest concern comes from a landslide that's occurred below Slade Way in 1960." It goes on to describe that. The point I'm trying to make in all this is the City felt that there was not enough information. Went out to a peer review, got back the same point that there is not enough information to make a decision. On page ten, again from the January 10th meeting, Mr. Pace said at the bottom, "and as Rick mentioned this is -oh, he's talking about the City's deciding to appeal the Planning Commission's decision. "And as Rick mentioned this is quite unusual. I think the reason we did this was for a concern of life safety issues given the history of this project. To review where you are now -it's before you and the City Council." To me it's very clear that the City's position from the start that they merely want more information that there is a potential threat here, it could be life threatening and that we don't have the data to make a decision. Now there was a lot of points raised along the way. There was discussion on whether or not people's engineering credentials were sufficient, there was discussion on whether or not Slade Way will slide and whether or not the City should save Slade Way. All kinds of issues, most of them seem to me to be irrelevant. They didn't really have to do with the issue. The simple issue is not whether or not Slade Way will slide, the issue is real simple, is do we have enough data to say whether developing on this property is safe? As far as Slade Way goes, on January 10th I asked Mr. Clayton a question on page 16. The question was does the existence of Slade Way in any way stabilize the hillside as far as deep seeded slide is concerned? No, Slade Way on exhibit six, there is really no structure to Slade Way. And in fact this deep seeded problem exists, it's really just the skin of this feature. There's no floor or anything behind it. What that says is that Slade Way doesn't protect the upper part. It's just setting up there. It may or may not slide with it, I'm sure if there is a big slide it will slide too. But Slade Way itself doesn't protect the property above it. I started looking at the testimony from the applicant and tried to understand the points they made. And went to Mr. Lowe's -in one part the applicant talks about the SAO and determined that since the SAO said that you had to totally eliminate any potential, that the SAO didn't make sense because in any real sense you 21 cannot eliminate potential for any slide at all. That's why I read that first part. The first part above that, the (unclear) said you had to eliminate any significant possibility, not totally eliminate the potential for a slide. I think that -I want to find the rest -Mr. Lowe's memo on October 13th -I lost part of my notes here -Mr. Lowe's memo on October 13th, 1993 to the Planning Commission. And quote, "1 and my engineers believe we have demonstrated this requirement. The disagreement with Staff appears to hinge in the meaning of the phrase, any potential impact to the proposed project and surrounding properties is eliminated. Staff suggests that any potential impact from the underlying instability must be eliminated. We believe this is an unreasonable interpretation of the SAO because no one could ever completely eliminate all instability. The SAO should not be interpreted to have absurd results or to impose requirements which are impossible to meet under any circumstances. WE contend that this phase means that any potential impact to stability caused by the project must be eliminated." Well there is two problems with that argument. First off, it ignores the other part of that same SAO, remember I told you the "or" clause that said to mean potential. The second problem with the argument says that the only thing they have to eliminate is the instability caused by the project itself. That doesn't make any sense. We have all kinds of laws we write that say it's not just what you do yourself, if the project is dangerous it's still dangerous. If you could say that you can build then a project right on a cliff as long as the project itself didn't make the cliff any more dangerous then the project is OK. Well no, it's not a good place to build. It's not only whether the project increased the instability, if there is instability there in the first place it's not a case of whether the project increases it or not, more, it's a project- -the issue is that it's still not safe. The requirement is to build a safe place for people to live. Not to build a safe project. If the area is unsafe, it's unsafe. I need to find my page numbers here nobody ever puts a document together quite the way I would access it. In Mr. George Lamb wrote a memo to Leroy Lowe on May 19, 1993. The memo is on page 90 and 91 of our blue book. And the subject is peer review of our evaluation of your Tukwila property. The bottom of the first page he says, "I do not see that it is your responsibility to fix a problem brought about by the excavation at the toe of the slope. The failure of the highway department's drainage system and the failure of the City to protect the street from encroachment below. You have a political problem, not a technical problem. Your property can't be used unless the City allow a boundary adjustment. The City Staff won't allow that regardless of the technical facts." The issue here is not a political issue. The issue before us is real simple. Does more testing have to be done to determine whether or not this is a safe place? The City Staff has not said that they are going to turn down the development. What they said is they can't make a decision as to whether or not it is safe. I don't know how to deal with the issue and the failure and the issue of the highway department's drainage system, but again that's not what's before us. What's before us tonight is to whether or not there is a potential for a deep seeded instability, or deep seeded slide and what would that mean. Also I'd like to go on to point out that highway department, WASHDOT, may have a particular risk factor that it's willing to have for the freeway. The City may have a (unclear) that we want Slade Way to be. But I would doubt any of us would say that either one of those have the same kind of subjective evaluation we would have for a house that someone's going to sleep in. We heard testimony tonight that if a catastrophic slide occurred it would still be a slow moving slide. By that I mean maybe a few inches overnight. A few inches overnight is unlikely to kill anybody on Slade Way. A few inches overnight to a house that has gas lines and electricity connected to it certainly could. It's just a different issue. But to compare where we want to build houses that people live in and the kind of risk we would allow there to the risk we would have for roads to me is nonsensical. It's not the same. In addition, the road was built a long time ago and it was built prior to us having the benefit of any of this data. The road is there. I guess we could tear it out, but the road doesn't contribute to the instability, the road was built before we knew that this site was unstable or potentially unstable. Going back to more testimony Mullet: Before you get off on your -on the next phase, I tend to agree with most of what you are saying until you get to the issue of more testing and more wells. Every time we've brought this issue up nobody has been able to come up with an answer as to how many more Rants: Joan has some comments she'd like to make. 22 wells need to be run, how much more tests need to be done, how you would get information out of them that would indicate whether this orange area which is basically what we're talking about would be stable or not. And there seems to be a big unknown here and everybody keeps talking around it. And so if you've found a place where somebody has quantitatively said that what that testing would do, then I would be in 100% agreement with you. I'm having a hard problem with testing for the sake of testing if we don't have any idea what the outcome or the knowledge that's going to be gained from it. Robertson: I'm trying to remember the quote, but somewhere in the material it points out that it's the case -you can't ever be perfectly sure. The more wells, the more data you have, the more surer you are. The -that slope stability factor, one says it's not moving at the moment but it's likely to, something below one means it's moving. Well the -in the data somewhere it says that the less data points you have the higher you want that number to be. If you only have one data point you'd want a factor of 1.5 to 1.6. If you have a whole lot of data, you were fairly certain, you would be happy with a factor of 1.2 maybe. Also, the reason that the Staff can't commit to exactly how big or how complicated a testing analysis needs to be done is there not sure what your going to find when you start doing the analysis. What they're saying is it's the applicants responsibility to do the analysis. It's the City's responsibility to analyze that analysis and decide whether it was sufficient Hernandez: Anytime. Robertson: Let me just finish the point. When you start that analysis if you do one well or two wells you might find a whole lot of data that conclusively answers all your questions or you might find some data that even raises more questions. Remember the purpose of the analysis is to say whether or not it's safe. That has to be given then to the City to analyze. I don't think the City can say up front. In fact the matter is there's been no analysis done at all and submitted for the deep seeded slide problem and that's what the City's asking for. There's nothing, there's nothing for them to evaluate. Hernandez: Our decision here tonight is to reverse the decision of the Planning Commission. And the night that they met there were only five members present where they would normally have seven. And it was a three two vote, so if one person would have voted differently we wouldn't be having to sit here and make this decision tonight. So they had to struggle with it too. It is a difficult decision and I don't in any way mean to show a lack of respect for all the professionals that have testified here this evening, but I think as long as we have a level of risk that we have to look to our Staff for guidance and to the SAO and in 1845080 under Conditioning and Denial of Use or Developments, it says that substantial weight shall be given to ensuring continued slope stability. And the resulting public health, safety, and welfare in determining what their development should be allowed to go forth. And also it says that a permit will be denied if it's determined by the DCD director that the development will increase the potential of soil movement that results in an unacceptable risk of damage to the proposed development, its site or adjacent properties. And that's what were talking about here. It appears to me as the adjacent properties, if there is any potential at all for risk that I think that alerts us that we need to proceed with caution. Not saying that this should be entirely denied, we're just asking for more information. If we can't make a decision unless we have that information then I think we need to proceed with the motion we proposed this evening. I'm willing to discuss more fully to clarify some of these points. There's certainly a lot of things to discuss and consider here, but it appears to me if there is any doubt that there's a potential risk that this is a direction that we need to go. We've heard testimony that prior excavations started the soil moving. So to me it just alerts me that there is a potential there that future excavations might also start soil moving and I just think that we have to look at all these things very carefully. Rants: Further comments? Anyone? All right, we have a motion on the floor. Cantu: Mr. Duffie: no Ms. Hernandez: yes Mr. Mullet: no Mr. Robertson: yes Mr. Ekberg: yes Ms. DeRodas: no Thank you. Rants: We have a 3/3 tie. 23 Robertson: I have a few more points I'd like to make for the record. One of the issues raised by the applicant on page eight and nine of the January 10th meeting. Mr. Lamb speaking, he said, "I see no reason under those circumstances why the City Council should overrule to consider judgment of the Planning Commission in as much as that frankly would reduce the value of the appeal to the Planning Commission to a mere formality." Those kind of arguments are all through the testimony here. The interesting part is that what the Planning Commission did was to here an appeal to a Staff decision. So you might say that if we allow the Planning Commission to overturn the Staff decision then we reduce the Staff decision to a mere formality with no weight. I mean that's a silly argument. We are -this is a serious business and we're here tonight for the same reason the Planning Commission heard the testimony because that's part of the process to try and arrive at a fair and a proper decision. To say that we shouldn't seems to me -we shouldn't discuss it- -seems a little bit silly. On page 20, there was a comment by Mr. Lowe that the City issued a building permit for a resident that sat right over the top of this particular landslide. So obviously the issue is if their so worried about life, health, safety, why should they issue a building permit for a house that sits right over that peninsula? Well, the point is real simple. Is that building permit was issued in the early 60's before all those houses were built. This wasn't an issue at that time and there wasn't any data on it. The whole thing is full of arguments like that. The argument about Slade Way sliding. Slade Way isn't the question. Slade Way isn't something people live in. Slade Way was built before we had this data. Slade Way was built before there was an SAO. The reasons we're sitting here and doing this is because of a law we have now called the SAO. That didn't exist at the time Slade Way was built. The -on page 24, Dick Stuth's comments and I'll read," And I will appeal more to your sensibility and your pedestrian knowledge of the property not to some high fluted scholastic considerations in the way of geotechnical considerations. I think that what we must recognize is that Leroy Lowe won his appeal and when does the City say "uncle when does the City say yes? How do we get to yes? How do we concur fear? Look at Dr. Twelker, he's not a young man. And you remember George walking out the door, he wasn't a young man either. Nor am I. And none of us are afraid of that site. Why do you suppose that is? We've had our feet in the mud, we're not afraid. We're not afraid." I don't know what to do with that kind of testimony. The issue was whether or not we need more data to make a decision about a deep seeded potential. Landslide is deep seeded where there's no data. Not whether or not we're afraid of a site. Rants: Are you ready for the question? Robertson: Yea, I could go on for a long time. Rants: I know. Question is, to overturn the Planning Commission's decision. Any further discussion from any of the Council? All in favor say I (unanimous), those opposed (some response). Let's just have a voice vote please so that I just have a good control or handle on it. Mullet: I would entertain a discussion about another motion. And I don't want to make the motion, my only concern with this and I agree with Dennis with everything you've said. My only concern is the open endedness of this testing procedure. And I don't know how to deal 24 with that. And I don't know how to ask a property owner to deal with that. And that is my concern. If we were asking him to merely drill more holes on his property and somebody else would drill off -site even though there's been some suggestion that we do require off -site drilling in other cases. This is a big slope, and that's the only thing that bothers me in here. Other than that I agree with you whole heartedly. We don't have enough data here. And we need some more. I'm just concerned about how much do we ask a property owner to sink into a piece of property. And maybe an analogy would be, we can build a building to withstand an earthquake, but if the whole mountain moves in the earthquake it wouldn't do us a bit of good. So I'm just, that's my concern which is pulling my- -which is keeping us.... Rants: Before I cast the untying ballot here, I would like to know what you motion would be. Mullet: That's what I was trying to come up with., a discussion that would revolve around that there was something that would treat the property owner and protect the City. Robertson: Let me speak to Steve's concern. First off, what the law, the TMC says is that applicant has to provide the analysis for the safety and the City analyzes it. Mullet: And I agree with you that not enough analysis is been given here. Robertson: Nothing has been provided in this case. We've had a lot of testimony back and forth, I can certainly understand how the Planning Commission split just as we have. This is incredible. Discussion and the counter arguments. Fact of the matter is, nothing has been provided that deal in the way of report and the analysis and data that deal with this. For the City to say you need two or three or five holes bored here and here and here presumes what the results would be after you bored the first one. He could bore the first hole down, or perhaps you could just analyze the data that's there right now and come to the conclusion that it's not safe anyway or that it is safe. That's what I believe Mr. Clayton was trying to say. He'II analyze the report and the City will, but it has to be provided. And you look at that data and you may say, well I can't conclude from this that it is safe. Or I can- but you have to wait to see till you get something. No where in the SAO does it say what a report has to look like in the TMC. It merely says that one has to be provided. Nothing has been provided. I think it would be inappropriate to tell them how much they should spend, or how detailed it is. Whether or not this potential development testifies the cost of analysis, is a business issue, a business decision that the potential developer has to make. It would be wrong for us to get involved in that. That's their perogative, their right, the whole idea of free enterprise. But we do have the right and the responsibility say that where there is a potential risk you have to provide some analysis. Something stamped by an engineer. We don't have that, we have nothing. All we have is some arm waving and discussion on issues on Slade Way and WASHDOT and all kinds of things, but no data. Ekberq: Steve I find it of interest that we are on both sides of the vote but we still have the same desire of data. And your approach of how we obtain it, or how we tell the owner or potential owner of the property how to obtain it, is not much different than mine. I'm concerned with that issue as well. Even though my vote was cast opposite of you. I'm concerned with how do we determine the right number of drill holes, and the hydrology of the property. Mullet: It's pretty obvious from all the discussions that that issue has been talked around from both sides and nobody has an understanding of that. That's what bothered me the most. Rants: Seems to me that the key of this is going to be the satisfaction of the DCD director under the provisions of the SAO. And that when the deep seeded borings are completed to his satisfaction the project can go forward. Now that seems to be where we are. And if I had a motion -when that analysis is completed -if I knew what that motion was I'd know exactly how I was going to cast a vote. 25 Robertson: What's the -I guess I would ask for an interpretation. We have a motion on the table -a possible motion. Did it fail with the three /three vote? Cohen: It's tied, it's up the Mayor to break the tie. Mullet: The Mayor has the deciding vote and he really doesn't need any further analysis unless he-- unless it would change your vote, and I don't think it would -I don't know if it would or not. I would suspect that any conversation that I would have about this would be to try and run the DCD's job and that's not what I'm trying to do. I suspect that he will accept the analysis when it's adequate to proceed with this site. I just have some sympathy with the property owner at this point, I guess and it's hard to overcome that at this point in time. Robertson: So do I. I mean -I can't image anything that would please me more personally than to see five nice houses built there. OK? I'm totally in sympathy with the goals of the property owner. I am not willing though to take a risk. I want to add to that, the point is right now that if that thing slides five years from now or twenty years from now or thirty years from now, it is the City that's going to get sued. It's unlikely that any engineer that would stamp that would be around at that time period worried about his engineering credentials. It is quite likely the City would be here. In a sense we have on record a report from Mr. Clayton, a reputable firm, saying that there is no data. We have City Staff saying that there's no basis for doing this. The legal position of the City is incredibly weak if something does happen. Rants: All right, let's bring this to conclusion then you will know better direction of which way you are going to go. I'm going to cast my vote with the yea's on this and overturn the Planning Commission's decision and support the Staff. Now because I feel the way you feel and because I've heard this rhetoric too, I think we should entertain another motion as to give some direction as to how to go forward on this. Ekberg: My thought on that is that maybe there could be some cooperation from this point forward, a joint effort established between the DCD and the applicant on how best to accomplish this to everyone's satisfaction. Mullet: It would seem that the slide, or this potential orange area covers a lot more than the five lots in question. So whatever is found out there is going to be pertinent data to the whole hillside all the way around. I don't know if there's an area for some sharing, I don't know if there's some area where obviously WASHDOT doesn't feel they can be intimidated to do anything on their part of the testimony that's been presented. I'm hesitant to say that the City should share in cost because that's not my -I don't want to do that. That's Mr. Beeler's responsibly or the -if they felt that was an appropriate thing they would have brought that forward I'm sure. Robertson: Well, I don't think it's appropriate for the City to spend City money to forward a particular private development no matter how much we favor it. That's probably not even legal. Mullet: But I think it would be appropriate for the City to take a position of getting some of these other participants involved with this stability study, which is off -site for this one person. And it might achieve some benefit for the property owner, I don't know. I don't know if there's been any effort to do that. Robertson: I think we would want to entertain an executive session on some of those issues before we would go very far. I think that we'd be putting the City in a position of liability. I don't think we want to Mullet: I'm very hesitant about this also. Robertson: The other thing that would bother me is again, if the applicant had gone off and done some amount of analysis, and the City was saying that they needed to spend more money or do something more, maybe we'd have something to talk about. But what we have for this particular problem is nothing. Rants: I would suggest that the applicant put this back and work with Staff again on a cooperative motion. There's no one on this Council that has an objection to single family housing. Everyone of you would like to see the project go forward. You would like to see it go forward with a feeling that it is -your responsibility has been met, that it is safe and it's a good place to live. And we would like to have that kind of housing in this City. What I would suggest to Mr. Lowe and the City Staff is to try and work this out again and once by the SAO, that it is passed the DCD director's scrutiny, it can go forward. And that's where the hang up is right now. Is that? Mullet: I would concur with that Wally, I don't think you could ask for anything more. DeRodas: I would concur with that too. We must establish how much testing is necessary. This is the question. Rants: That's up to the Staff to determine how much testing is necessary. Robertson: One of the differences between a legal and an engineering is your talking about starting to do some testing to give you enough data to make a decision. It's to some extent an known. When you drill that first hole that may raise more questions and you have no way of knowing that. If you say that we're going to limit it to two holes, the two holes may provide even more questions and uncertainty than one hole did. So if you say we're only going to dig two holes or spend $10,000 you can't do that. That's the -if you want to say the uncertainty, the unfairness of this whole thing. But that's just the way it is. Rants: That's why I left it to the discretion of the DCD Director to make that determination. Are we ready to go forward on the agenda? END OF VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT 7/ 7 26