SOUTH WHIDBEY RECORD: Coles Valley density-limiting proposal pulled (AUDIO)

Kira Erickson reports from the Langley City Council meeting on Mon., Aug. 1, 2022:

At a city council meeting Monday night, Councilmember Gail Fleming made the decision to rescind her proclamation regarding the controversial Coles Valley development.

Fleming’s proclamation, which she presented at the council’s July 18 meeting, called for a decrease in units for the housing development, from 131 to 67.

They Said It

[Councilmember Gail] Fleming emphasized that she was under the impression that the council could only regulate density before the developers submitted their PUD, or planned unit development, application for the project.

“I find it unfortunate that the proclamation seems to have resulted in a bit of polarization in our community, with some going so far as to accuse those who would like to see less units in the Coles Valley development as being against the whole project,” she said.

She added that after consulting with the city attorney, she learned that what she had proposed was “perfectly legal and neither quasi-judicial nor criminal.”

“I personally don’t want this proposal – which we haven’t even seen an application come in yet – to be everything we do,” Councilmember Rhonda Salerno said. “You can see from the previous work that we’ve been doing, how much there is to do for our city.”