Court Opinion

ID: 9576526
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:25:33.718774+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:08:20.092095
License: Public Domain

Webster, A.C.J., concurs.
Baker, J. — I concur. The issue, as correctly set forth in the majority opinion, is whether submittal of a drainage plan and profile pursuant to the county ordinance (King *657County Code 19.28.010) was a necessary element for a fully completed preliminary plat application under RCW 58.17-.033(2). This issue is a legal one. Our review is therefore properly de novo, to determine whether the county council's action was unlawful. RCW 58.17.180. Cf. Franklin Cy. Sheriff's Office v. Sellers, 97 Wn.2d 317, 325, 646 P.2d 113 (1982) (administrative procedure act), cert, denied, 459 U.S. 1106 (1983).
The 1987 enactment codified as RCW 58.17.033 clearly does require a fully completed preliminary plat application as a condition for applicability of the vested rights doctrine. The statute also clearly requires each local jurisdiction to set forth by ordinance its requirements for a fiilly completed application.
At the time of the county council's decision in this matter, King County had not adopted such an ordinance. That failure, however, does not prevent application of the vested rights doctrine under section .033(1) of the statute. The question of whether the application was fully completed was made more difficult in the absence of such an ordinance, but the task is not an impossible one. It requires an analysis of the county ordinances which had been adopted, and, where some ambiguity exists therein, consideration of the County's interpretation as exhibited by its practices under the ordinance in question.
Following that procedure on this record, I would hold, as did the county council, that the subject application was fiilly completed.
My sole difference with the majority, then, is over the proper standard of review. The arbitrary and capricious standard applies to discretionary decisions. See Pentagram Corp. v. Seattle, 28 Wn. App. 219, 228, 622 P.2d 892 (1981). The council's decision was not discretionary. It was rather a legal determination of whether the requirements of a county ordinance and state statute had been met. Our review is the same, and is therefore de novo.
Review denied at 119 Wn.2d 1006 (1992).