SEQUIM — The following is from the office of the Communications and Marketing Director of The City of Sequim. At the end of this post we’ve included a comment from our talk with City Manager Charlie Bush:

The Sequim City Council invites the public to attend a special City Council meeting on Monday, July 29 at 6:00 p.m. at the Guy Cole Event Center, Carrie Blake Park, to learn more about the City’s role in the permitting process for the potential Medication-Assisted Treatment Center (MAT).

The Council will be prepared to take public comment from the audience. During the public comment period, each individual has three minutes to address the Council.

The potential development of the MAT is part of a larger plan to build a behavioral health center that will be jointly operated by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, Olympic Medical Center, and Jefferson Healthcare Hospital.

At this time, no permit or pre-application has been filed with the City. When an application is filed for development, there is a state-mandated process for review. It is anticipated that the MAT permit will fall within the A-1 process, because the proposed property is zoned for the intended use:

• The developer confirms that the property is zoned for the intended use. This often occurs in an informal inquiry to City staff.
• Pre-application (if required) or permit application is submitted to the City.

State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) Review (if required) – Applies when the project meets specific perimeters, such as building size and number of parking spaces. May require public notice and public comment if there are mitigating conditions.

Building and construction plan review:

• Site Construction Permit review and approval (process can be concurrent with building permit review and must be completed prior to building permit issuance).
• A-1 Permit decision is determined by staff (Department of Community Development Director).
• Appeals are made to an independent Hearing Examiner.
• Hearing Examiner decision is appealable to the Clallam County Superior Court.

The typical timeframe for a permit decision without an appeal is 30–60 days without SEPA. It is unknown at this time whether the MAT project will require a SEPA review.

If a project requires a conditional use permit (C1 process), the City is required to notify the public of the permit application, an open-record public hearing is required, the application is reviewed and a determination is made by the Planning Commission.  Appeals to the decision are made to the Sequim City Council and then to the Clallam County Superior Court.

The City’s Comprehensive Plan defines the various land use designations within the City and the Zoning Code contains the various regulations applicable to the various zoning districts in the City. The land proposed for the MAT facility is zoned for commercial use, which includes medical clinics.

For more information, please contact the Department of Community Development at(360) 683-4908.

KONP asked City Manager Charlie Bush if this public meeting was scheduled as a matter of course for a project like this, or was it done in response to the very vocal opposition to the project from some residents.

“No, this isn’t something that would necessarily happen anyway, but we had such a tremendous outpouring from the community wanting to communicate with the city council, and initially didn’t have a clear understanding of what kind of application we might receive from the Tribe. So the result was, we recommended that the council not directly engage and treat it like a quasi-judicial matter, which it certainly could be if the entire both phases of the project came in at the same time for review. But at this time we’ve spoken with the Tribe and they’ve indicated only Phase One would be coming in and as a result of that, given the process, the city council is not a part of the primary evaluation or primary review or the appeal process. So the city council can certainly engage the community, and we had pledged a follow-up meeting as staff with the community at a minimum, but because the council can fully engage, the council is planning to hear from the community on the 29th and stay as long as it takes for everybody to feel like their voice has been heard.”