A proposed gated community for 73 manufactured homes designed for residents 55-plus at the corner of Hooker and Atterberry roads is drawing the ire of Carlsborg residents calling themselves the Concerned Atterberry Neighbors.

The group has a long list of concerns for Clallam County officials ranging from environmental to traffic impacts that 163 people signed in a petition in hopes to delay the project for further review or postpone indefinitely.

Residents can speak at the property’s hearing at 2 p.m. Thursday, June 1, in the Clallam County Courthouse, 223 E. Fourth St., Port Angeles, in Room 160, where Hearing Examiner Andrew Reeves considers the housing development. He’ll make a determination within 10 business days.

Clallam County Senior Planner Donella Clark recommended approving the project with several mandates and recommendations in conjunction with moving forward ranging from widening Atterberry Road to installing berms to blend the property in with the neighborhood.

Property owner Chris Anderson, owner of CA Homes Inc., said he intends to build the 73 manufactured homes, called CA Homes Mobile Home Park, over three phases in three years on seven acres of the approximate 15.5 acre property. If approved, the first phase would include 42-43 homes, he said.

Anderson said this is his first foray into modular homes in his 28-year career.

When his business began operating in Sequim, they built mid- to high-range homes, he said, but when the recession hit he switched to constructing affordable housing.

“There’s a huge need for that,” Anderson said.

Anderson said permitting costs and provisions don’t make it viable for him to construct affordable housing in the City of Sequim, but when the Carlsborg Sewer System finished, he opted to go forward with purchasing the Atterberry property.

“There’s a lack of senior living here,” he said. “We’re a retirement community and almost 70 percent of our clientele are retired. There aren’t solutions readily available to them.”

His modular homes would range from about 1,200 square feet to 1,700 square feet with three or two bedrooms and two bathrooms and an attached two-car garage, county documents state.

Anderson said the homes would sell for about $125,000-$150,000 and the property would be leased.

Neighbors concerned

Neighbors of the project say they learned about it from a sign posted on the property on May 4 when signs were first posted.

Charles Meyer, a retired employee for the Department of Defense and an Atterberry resident since 2013, said “there’s a perception (by neighbors) that some of the laws have not been followed closely so I think it’s fair for us to point out those discrepancies.”

Neighbors along the road since then have posted signs alerting residents to a website with their concerns.

Meyer said when they learned of the proposal the only activity they’d seen there in recent years were for sale signs.

Debra Stevens, a retired planner with the City of Lynnwood who has lived across from the proposed site since 2014, said, “The more we got looking (at recent planning documents), the more unbelievably inaccurate everything was.”

Neighbors contest Anderson’s State Environmental Policy Act application saying it doesn’t have up-to-date information on the property.

In Anderson’s application, he states an environmental review for a 21-lot subdivision was completed by the previous owner Tony Glavin in May 2007, which reviewed and agreed upon a study in February 1995 because no development had occurred.

County documents state an environmental review was performed on a three-lot subdivision at more than five acres each in 2015, too.

Those reviews also classify Matriotti Creek as a Type 3 stream that requires a 100 foot buffer from construction but Stevens said the county’s critical area maps label it a Type 2 stream, which requires a 150 foot buffer.

However, Clark said the creek is a Type 3 because the stream bed is not original or pristine because it was influenced by an irrigation ditch on the property.

Neighbors also want an expert study of the hydrology of the area because it sits on an aquifer recharge area and they believe the development could cause a negative impact to the creek and/or nearby areas.

“The aquifer is critical,” Stevens said. “They’re looking to cover it with an impervious surface but this is really a sensitive site.”

Another concern for neighbors is traffic because county staff estimate several hundred new vehicle visits to and from the site using nearby roads.

Stevens said Hooker Road doesn’t work well now and a traffic engineer would be needed to look at the capacity for the road especially at the intersection of U.S. Highway 101.

Neighbors want a licensed traffic engineer to investigate the new development’s impact.

“There are some real issues that have been avoided,” she said.

Clark said the traffic lights originally were calibrated for Costco’s old building, which is now operated by the Clallam PUD, and the proposed traffic from the modular homes still wouldn’t match the former traffic flow to the business.

Fish connection

With the possibility for smaller buffers, the property also may impact salmonid run and migrating fish in Matriotti Creek, neighbors say.

This summer, a 5-foot-wide culvert below U.S. Highway 101 will be replaced with a 10-foot by 19-foot culvert to help fish habitat, but neighbors say the development may harshly impact water flow.

Scott Chitwood, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe Natural Resources Department director, said his staff has operated a half-inch smolt trap in the lower area of the creek since 2003 and they find steelhead, a threatened species, coho salmon, cutthroat trout, steelhead and sometimes chum and pink salmon along with other non-salmonids like lampreys.

Chitwood said the creek is critically important for fish because of the lack of habitats available to them locally.

As for any possible impact from the mobile home development, he said, “We just don’t know how far up the coho and cutthroat migrate up the system.”

County’s response

As of Tuesday, May 30, neighbors submitted more than 40 comments to the county’s Department of Community Development.

Clark said after fielding many concerns, she’s been “trying to mitigate to reduce their concerns.”

Some of the mandates that Anderson must abide by before developing include widening Atterberry Road by the property 17 feet and installing hard road surface in the property. He’ll also have to keep 1.24 acres be open space on the property due to zoning, but he is developing less than half of the property.

Clark does maintain that at least a 100 foot buffer should be kept from the creek.

She makes several recommendations that the hearing examiner can enforce including: a biologist submit an enhancement plan to the county to improve the buffer of Matriotti Creek, installing sidewalks along Atterberry Road, conducting a wetland study, and more.

County staff also recommend that a buffer be installed between the homes to the west along the creek, along Atterberry Road and along Hooker Road to keep the visual appearance of the neighborhood.

Anderson said he’s worked closely with Clallam County and other agencies to follow their recommendations.

“I understand the neighbors aren’t happy with it,” he said. “I’ve accepted phone calls from people who have called me directly. Neighbors all got to do what they wanted to do on their properties, but I understand I’m not going to make everyone happy.”

Meyer said there are two scenarios that could play out with the hearing.

“We think it would be reasonable for the hearing examiner to request revisions and a new hearing be rescheduled,” he said.

“Or another way he could go is that there seems to be some cause to go ahead with this development but there are some needs that must be met because of environmental concerns.”

Concerned Atterberry Neighbors, a group of neighbors in Carlsborg, formed to contest a proposed 73-unit mobile home park in early May. Organizers say they weren’t given proper notice about the development and it will have an adverse effect on the neighborhood. Sequim Gazette photo by Matthew Nash

Matriotti Creek, which many local fish use for habitat, runs through a proposed property that owners are readying to become a 73-unit mobile home park. Neighbors want Clallam County officials to request further environmental analysis to see if there is an impact on the fish and ecosystem. Sequim Gazette photo by Matthew Nash