City extends moratorium on master-planned overlays

Published 2:30 am Wednesday, January 28, 2026

Another six-month emergency moratorium on master-planned overlays in the City of Sequim was approved by city councilors on Monday.

The moratorium pauses accepting, processing, and approving overlay projects, such as Westbay’s proposed 600-lot development by John Wayne Marina. Westbay, proposed by Seabrook Holding Company, is the only overlay project pending in the city. Its application was deemed technically incomplete on July 21 by city staff who have said their report on Westbay wasn’t a complete substantive review, but a process to identify the minimum needed to see if a full technical review can continue.

Westbay will not be able to achieve a technically complete application until the moratorium is lifted, staff said.

Councilors originally approved the moratorium a week later on July 28, 2025 at staff’s recommendation with a required public hearing held on Sept. 22, 2025. However, City Attorney Kristina Nelson-Gross has said the moratorium isn’t about Westbay, but so the city could “ensure that the city regulations, comprehensive plans, and other guiding regulatory documents have reached a level of consistency that will allow the staff, members of the public, and the applicant to have a clear, well defined process.”

City staff indicated in late December that they would ask councilors to extend the moratorium to complete the city’s Comprehensive Plan 2025 update and development regulations. Interim Director of the Department of Community and Economic Development Karla Boughton reiterated this on Monday.

Councilors voted 6-0 with Brandon Janisse absent on Jan. 26 to extend the moratorium until July 26. They didn’t discuss the extension.

Another public hearing will be required to justify the continuation with a work plan, according to city documents.

Councilors hold the option to rescind the moratorium prior to July 26 if “necessary updates to the Comprehensive Plan and development regulations have been adopted,” Boughton wrote in city documents.

A draft of the Comprehensive Plan will be made available on April 1 with an online open house set for April 1-21. Sequim’s Planning Commission will hold a public hearing and make a recommendation to the city council on May 5.

City councilors will hold work sessions on May 11, May 26, and tentatively June 1 before public hearings on June 8 and tentatively June 22, if not adopted on June 8.

Tony Corrado was the lone person from the public to speak at the moratorium extension public hearing on Jan. 26 saying that the “city has failed to provide adequate responses to the issues related to (Westbay) and some or all of the issues that have been raised by a number of concerned citizens in writing to the mayor and council and staff.”

Corrado asked for a public forum with a factual presentation on the project, and for the city’s online fact sheet to be continuously updated.

“We need facts in full transparency, not obfuscation concerning these development projects,” he said.

“My personal focus, however, is the impact this development will have on the very fragile and critical natural environment associated with the marina’s site, namely, the Pitship Estuary. This estuary is critical to salmon reproduction, bird migration, and localized wildlife, which the proposed development threatens. Natural groundwater flow and a lack of definitive city requirements for critical setbacks, contamination reduction, and infrastructure, frankly, are lacking.”

When the moratorium was first put in place, stakeholders spoke against it and said they were considering legal action against the city for damages and/or pulling out of the project.

In late December, Seabrook staff said they signed an extension with Wayne Enterprises through the city’s moratorium, and they’ve re-engaged city staff about their application.

Boughton wrote in an email reply that Seabrook staff have requested two conversations with city staff in the past two weeks about a work plan and critical areas.

For more information about the moratorium, visit sequimwa.gov/1319/Emergency-Master-Plan-Overlay-Moratorium.