Opinion ID: 2351097
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Yelm City Council approval of the preliminary plat

Text: ¶ 6 Knight appealed the hearing examiner's decision to the City Council, alleging multiple errors. On February 12, 2008, the City Council passed Resolution 481, a decision that affirmed and amended the hearing examiner's decision approving Tahoma Terra's preliminary plat application. Resolution 481's Conclusion of Law 3 stated: JZ Knight has not shown that she will actually suffer any specific and concrete injury in fact, within the zone of interests protected by the legal grounds for her appeals, relating to the sole issue raised by her appeals, whether the appropriate provision for potable water has been made for the proposed developments. Therefore, Knight is not an aggrieved person with standing to appeal the Examiner's decision to the City Council. [ [4] ] Notwithstanding the City Council's conclusion that Knight lacks standing to appeal, the City Council contingently decides Knight's appeals so that remand and rehearing will not be necessary if, in the future, there is a final judicial determination that Knight had standing to bring these appeals. Id. at 26 (emphasis added). Resolution 481 also states, in relevant part: The exact quantity of water rights that the City currently holds, which recently has been disputed by Knight, is immaterial because the City presented evidence, upon which the Hearing Examiner reasonably relied, that substantial additional water rights have been obtained by the City and that their transfer is reasonably expected to be approved [by] the State Department of Ecology (Ecology), and that substantial new water rights are the subject of water rights applications pending before Ecology. On the basis of such evidence, the Hearing Examiner concluded that the requirements of Section 58.17.110 RCW and Sections 15.40.010 and .020 YMC were satisfied by evidence supporting a reasonable expectation that ample water will be available at the time that water is required upon connection and entered written findings that appropriate provision was made for potable water. . . . The City has made appropriate findings of water availability at the appropriate points in the application process. . . . Id. at 28. The City Council resolution did not explicitly require the City to show adequate water provisions at the final plat approval stage.