Council approves annexing two H Street properties

Blaine City Council unanimously voted to annex two H Street Road properties, on the cusp of city limits near Odell Road. The annexation is a culmination of about 18 months of council discussions and will be the first east Blaine annexation since 1996.

The area comprises just under five acres and lies within the city’s urban growth area. The annexed area will be residential single family in the city’s comprehensive plan, which means a maximum of four to six units per acre. H Street abutting the parcels will also be annexed, according to city documents.

Patrick Rooney submitted an annexation request for his 3.2-acre property at 4455 H Street Road in November 2020, and the city deemed it complete January 2021. Rooney filed the petition using the “Sixty Percent Petition” method that allowed the petition to be filed if at least 60 percent of property owners in the proposed annexation agreed. The “Sixty Percent Petition” method is the most common annexation method in the state, city officials previously said.

The city decided to annex the neighboring 1.6-acre property, at 2221 Cedarwood Lane, because the landowner agreed to an outside utilities agreement in 2002 with the caveat that the city could annex the land. The 2221 Cedarwood Lane owner, Raymond Pelletti, told the city in 2018 and 2019 that he wasn’t in favor of having his property being annexed, according to a previous article in The Northern Light.

City council held a work-study session to consider the annexation in January 2021. The annexation request was expected to be complete by summer 2021, but procedural irregularities dragged out the annexation timeline.

Council voted in May 2021 to annex both properties after strong pushback during a public hearing where neighbors brought up concerns that annexing the Rooney property could lead to unwanted growth. City staff said development concerns were beyond the annexation request’s purview and council agreed to have the properties zoned as low density.

The ordinance was then supposed to go to the Whatcom County Boundary Review Board, which serves as the appeal body for boundary decisions and approves that the annexation is consistent with Blaine’s urban growth area. However, city staff discovered procedural irregularities in August 2021 that needed to be fixed before the annexation request went before the county, which would ultimately approve or deny the request.

In January, city council once again held a public hearing for the annexation request, this time with the irregularities fixed. Council unanimously approved for the annexation to go before the county’s boundary review board.

Then city manager Michael Jones wrote an April 19 letter to the boundary review board asking that it use a legal provision to expedite the annexation process. According to state law, the boundary review board chair can declare an area does not need to be reviewed by the entire board if the area is less than 10 acres and less than $2 million in assessed valuation. The combined H Street Road properties were just over $1.4 million in valuation and under five acres.

“The exception to the review requirement does not state precisely when or how it may be invoked and relied upon,” city attorney Peter Ruffatto wrote in an email. “The city chose to submit the annexation to the boundary review board, and then requested the chair to issue a determination that full review by the board was unnecessary to protect the interests of all parties.”

Jones’s letter stated Pelletti, owner of the Cedarwood property, requested a hearing before the boundary review board but had already been heard by the process because he waived his rights in the 2002 outside utilities agreement.

Pelletti said he’s never been opposed to the annexation process but always believed the city was spot zoning the properties. He believed the properties were annexed to allow Rooney to connect to the city’s sewer system, which would allow him to build more properties.

“The two lots don’t provide benefits to the city,” Pelletti said.

Pelletti, who said other neighbors remain opposed to potential development, argued that the city didn’t need to annex the property as there are already 2,800 units in the pipeline either approved or proposed.

“I’m on the side of the city on this,” Rooney said in a phone interview. He declined to comment further.

Council voted 5-0, with councilmembers Richard May and Kerena Higgins not in attendance, during its August 8 meeting. The properties will officially be annexed September 30.