Another front in the battle between Centralia’s port and city governments over traffic on Harrison Avenue is over for now after roughly a year of debate over how a new housing development would impact traffic on the major thoroughfare.
The city backed down earlier this month, retracting a finding on Wednesday, April 8, that stated a proposed 54-unit multiplex known as Norwegian Woods would have no major impacts on nearby traffic along Harrison Avenue. The port rescinded an appeal related to the project a day later, April 9.
The appeal had held up the project since it was filed last June.
On the surface, the two local governments battled over a new housing development, but underneath port officials wanted a change in the city’s traffic fee structure. Many local governments charge fees to new developments that go toward funding traffic improvements to support local growth.
The city is moving forward with a change to traffic impact fees that would require more new developments in the city limits or urban growth area to pay into local traffic projects.
Whether the change is a direct result of the appeal is a subject for debate, but regardless it appears the port has finally gotten what it wants.
Freshman Port of Centralia Commissioner Ally Pickard has regularly criticized the appeal and since her first meeting as a port commissioner urged the commission to drop it. She has referred to the appeal as “adversarial” and “ineffective, expensive and wrong.” Fellow Port Commissioners Peter Lahmann and Kyle Markstrom have repeatedly refused to support Pickard’s motions to terminate the appeal.
In a Centralia Port Commission meeting on Wednesday, April 15, Pickard questioned whether the appeal was really worth the time and roughly $50,000 in legal fees, suggesting that the movement from the city was not actually triggered by the appeal.
During the same meeting Markstrom described the end result as a big win for the port, seeing it as vindication of the port's approach to appeal the nearby development and the costs to do so.
“We put this appeal in place, and then the city made the decision to hire a consultant and go to a new fee structure,” Markstrom said. “I am pretty confident that that is because of this appeal. I do not believe that that would have happened without this appeal.”
Centralia City Manager Michael Thomas admits the new structure would mean the city and the port would finally be on the “same frequency” concerning traffic fees. But Thomas added that the outcome on the city’s side is more a coincidence than cause an effect. According to Thomas, an increase in new development and the recent state mandated comprehensive plan update meant it was finally beneficial for the city to change its fee structure.
“We aren’t doing it because of them,” Thomas said. “But it will scratch that itch.”
New fee structure
Late last month, the Centralia City Council started the process of adopting a new structure to fees charged to new development projects that help fund the city’s traffic improvements. During the council's March 24 meeting, Centralia City Engineer Patty Page presented a request that the council approve a traffic impact fee study to develop a new fee structure. The council approved the new study unanimously.
Jacobs Engineering Solutions will lead the study and is expected to bring a recommended fee structure supported by the study to the council sometime in the fall. According to Page, Jacobs is the same contracting firm that helped the city with the transportation part of its comprehensive plan update last year and as such already has much of the data it needs to complete its study.
During public comment, Pickard, who regularly attends the Centralia City Council meetings, spoke in strong support of the traffic impact fee study, adding that the current structure is inadequate. Pickard pointed to a 100-home development that avoided paying into the city’s traffic improvements because it wasn't close enough to current or upcoming projects.
“I just wanted to (say) tonight, that I am in full favor of this study,” Pickard said. “It is a big step forward, and I appreciate Patty's hard work on this.”
According to Page, the city’s current fee structure charges traffic mitigation fees based on proximity to ongoing or planned projects. As a result, a new store on Harrison Avenue might pay multiple mitigation fees while a housing development on the other side of the town would pay none despite contributing cars and commuters to the area.
Thomas said the city hopes to implement a new traffic fee structure next year going into effect Jan. 1, 2027.
Norwegian Woods
Exactly one year ago, April 28, 2025, Tim Barney of Pacific Testing and Inspection Inc. submitted a State Environmental Protection Act (SEPA) environmental checklist for a proposed plat subdivision to the City of Centralia. The proposed plat for a nearly 5-acre parcel along Harrison Avenue near Goodrich Road would divide the piece of land into 16 lots. Two would be for existing single family homes. The additional 14 would accommodate the construction of new “multi-plexes” for high density multi-family housing.
In the environmental checklist, the developer included that the new buildings would accommodate around 190 residents and include parking spaces for more than 100 cars. In a section concerning traffic impacts, the document shows an estimate that residents of the building would add 396 average daily car trips to the area. Harrison Avenue is the only way to access the new development.
Roughly two months later, the city of Centralia issued a mitigated determination of nonsignificance. The document declared that the city did not expect the project to have any significant impacts to the surrounding environment. It also noted that any impacts to traffic, floodplains or schools would be mitigated through fees paid to the city.
The port filed an appeal of the determination less than a month after the document was published and after first warning, during a comment period, that it planned to appeal the finding. In the appeal, the port claimed that studies of traffic impacts were inadequate and claimed the city’s proposed mitigation fees were not appropriate to address expected impacts.
The appeal set off months of back and forth between the port and the city staff and legal representation, captured by requested emails and other official documents. Exchanges included demands by the port through its attorneys that the city hold a public hearing on its appeal or cancel a public hearing on the proposed subdivision. The city ultimately canceled the hearing and appeared to make no more forward progress on the project afterward.
According to Thomas, the city expects the developer of the project to try again. Thomas added that the city will require the developer to include more analysis of potential traffic impacts this time around.
“We did ask that the developer expand their traffic analysis to include more intersections,” Thomas said. “That shouldn’t be too big a problem for them.”
