Olympia landowner seeking to build fourplexes on Deschutes Parkway property

The Olympia Site Plan Review Committee held a presubmission hearing on a project at 500 Deschutes Parkway SW with three housing fourplexes.

According to the property owner and applicant for the project, Sean Threatt, they intend to build three fourplexes in phases. For phase 1, two fourplexes will be built in the northern part of the property, and for phase 2, build the third fourplex in the southern portion.

In a narrative submitted to the committee, Threatt expressed his plan to move forward on a large multi-use building with cafes, restaurants, and bars on the bottom floor and housing on top.

"I personally think it would be cool for this project to help generate revenue for the demographic of people who were camped here. I imagine this would require a zone change. To go this route, I would want reassurances from city officials that they support this plan," Threatt stated.

The site

According to Curtis Wambach, a biologist contracted by the applicant, the site is encumbered by wetlands, which are degraded. Wambach said that the homeless camps highly impacted the site environment.

"The damage to the environment on the site, the wetlands, and drainage are extensive," Wambach said, adding, "there are still needles and batteries that are embedded in the soils on site."

He said they have the opportunity to improve the wetlands on site to clean them up and improve their functions. "We can mitigate on-site and create better wetlands with higher functions, or we could mitigate off-site wetland area."

Planning review

On this project, Olympia associate planner Jackson Ewing sees that shoreline jurisdiction and the associate critical areas would cause a higher review level and potentially require a sign-off from the Department of Ecology.

"The crucial part of this project is how wetlands and important habitats are connected to the shoreline jurisdiction and the Capitol Lake and what kind of protections would be required," Ewing said, adding there are numerous protected species around the lake, including salmon, waterfowl and others.

He told the applicant that the development proposal needs to show a plan that will not reduce or eliminate any wetlands on site.

He said the city expects an extensive wetland review, a review of steeps and slopes through geotechnical analysis and habitat reports for all the important and protected species habitat associated with the lake.

"The wetlands in this project are associated with the shoreline jurisdiction. That will bring a lot of additional requirements. Any buffer reductions would be reviewed through a shoreline variance," he said.

Ewing noted a strict prohibition of filling those wetlands on site, even if they were in a degraded state. "[The city] would expect that they would be restored."

As for the zoning, the associate planner said the site is zoned for Residential 6-12. It allows one fourplex per lot.

"Each fourplex would need to be located on an individual lot and meet all development standards. That means fourplex would need to be outside wetland buffers and meet additional critical area codes," he said.