Testimony in support, a unanimous planning commission decision and a positive recommendation from community development weren’t enough to get the Lewis County commissioners to vote for the YMCA of Greater Seattle’s rezone on 500 acres north of Mineral Lake — but, a lawsuit was apparently enough to make them reconsider.
After the nonprofit filed a lawsuit against the county in November and purchased an additional 1,600 acres abutting the property this month, the commissioners announced Tuesday they will re-open the public hearing on the rezone on Feb. 14 at 10 a.m. and hold a public workshop on Feb. 8 at 9 a.m. Both will be held in the Lewis County Courthouse in Chehalis. The final deliberation and decision date has not been officially set due to scheduling conflicts.
If the rezone is granted, the YMCA of Greater Seattle will eventually build an overnight summer camp on the lake in collaboration with the Nisqually Indian Tribe. It would be the nonprofit’s first new overnight camp in the United States in over a century.
According to County Manager Erik Martin, the commissioners were not legally required to hear the appeal — which was filed as a requirement for the lawsuit in the state’s growth management act alongside the lawsuit — but made the choice to do so after the recommendation was discussed in executive session.
Asked why the board is hearing the appeal, Martin spoke with commissioners and sent the following response to The Chronicle: “For county land use hearings, there are particular procedures that have to be followed in order to get information into the record, and we did not get everything into that record that we needed. Reopening the hearing will give both parties the opportunity to create a full and complete record regarding the YMCA land use decision.”
He added the two parties he referred to are the county and the YMCA.
Should the commission vote in favor of the rezone, will the YMCA drop the suit? Martin answered he could not guess how the commission would vote, but, in that case, he supposed it was likely.
“(Then) what are they suing for?” Martin asked, adding, “I think I understand that the YMCA wants to be a partner in this community, at least that’s what they said.”
The YMCA did not respond to a request for comment before The Chronicle’s press deadline on Wednesday. Its representatives have previously declined to comment on the active litigation.
Last November, the commissioners voted against the rezone from “forest resource land” to “master planned resort.” The public hearing included robust written and oral testimony.
“A lot more than most,” said Martin with a chuckle. “There’s a lot and I’m sure there will be more.”
In two segments of public hearings on the matter in front of the commissioners from October and November, 33 letters were submitted and over a dozen people spoke out during an in-person hearing.
Of the letters, which were submitted by state and national representatives from the Y, leaders from the Nisqually Tribe and residents of Lewis County, 21 were in support and 12 were in opposition. In person, according to previous reporting by The Chronicle, eight people spoke in favor of the proposal and six were opposed, with most of the latter being residents of Mineral, an unincorporated community in northeast county.
Several of the letters in opposition focused on the YMCA’s stance on LGBTQ+ inclusivity and being anti-racism, which, to some letter writers, was against what they felt the “Young Men’s Christian Association” should stand for. It was these issues and the question of whether the Y supported “defunding the police” that commissioner Sean Swope focused on during the final decision on the rezone — which formed the grounds of the lawsuit.
Filed in Thurston County Superior Court with an ask for a rezone ruling in the Y’s favor and compensation fees from the legal process, the suit alleges the commissioners went beyond the scope of how land-use decisions should be made as outlined in both state and county code.
One objective piece of the code does allow the commissioners to choose whether a rezone would be “beneficial” for the community. But, community development staff had advised that the master planned resort overlay for the property was in line with the county’s long-term planning goals.
Still, the three commissioners — one of whom has since retired — voted the proposal down. The retiree’s replacement, Commissioner Scott Brummer, has also been publicly opposed to the rezone. Along the campaign trail, he called it “not a land-use issue,” but a threat to the rural community of Mineral.
Before it was ever in front of the planning commission, the YMCA of Greater Seattle held public workshops with Mineral residents on their camp proposal, and were met with plenty of vocal opposition. Concerns included poor road infrastructure, water availability, environmental impacts, noise from youth at the camp and lack of available fire and emergency services in the area, all of which the YMCA said it would focus on mitigating in its binding site plan.
The plan is one of the “sunset provisions” of the rezone. If it’s granted, the organization would have five years to bring the plan forward, lest the property be reverted to forest resource land.
The land is zoned in what 78-year resident of the town Ron Nilson has referred to as “spaghetti strips” with lakefront property and, he said, it was initially set up that way by developers who intended to sell the plats for residential purposes. That proposal was shot down by the community in front of the commissioners several years ago, Nilson said, adding he felt residents were against the idea of Mineral becoming a populous lakeside city.
The YMCA countered those concerns, saying its proposal would prevent the land from becoming “McMansions” and leave the pristine lake near Mount Rainier in its most natural state.
To read the entirety of the staff presentation and public hearing on the rezone, visit Lewis County Community Development’s “Rezones” page at bit.ly/LC-rezones.
