Tiny Home Village Conflict over Wetland Determination
by Claudia Riiff Finseth
Recently, the Tacoma News Tribune carried some interesting articles related to the Hearing Examiner meetings that had just wrapped up on the proposed use of the Spanaway Marsh for a high-density development. The plan is for a tiny home village for people experiencing chronic homelessness at the end of their lives. Opposing sides have grown up, and the issue has become heated, resulting in lawsuits.
In one rather sensationalist article, reporter Cameron Sheppard compared the controversy over the use of the Marsh to a battle between people and squirrels. He was essentially questioning, who is the most important?
In another, more salient article, former Washington State Republican Party chairman Chris Vance wrote about the mess Pierce County has made of land use planning in general, and the implementation of the Growth Management Act in particular, compared to King County.
I’d like to take a moment to try to get to the real heart of this matter by comparing the “expert testimonies” by the biologists who were the wetland specialists for the hearings, one for the building applicants, and one for the appellants who oppose the use of the Marsh for high-density development.
The controversy centers around Category I and Category II wetlands as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency. In which category is the Spanaway Marsh included?
The biologist for the building applicant says it is a Category II wetland, so high-density development is not permissable there. That biologist’s reasoning was that there is evidence of human activity on the land: specifically some trash, and signs of camping and walking.
But most of these reasons are due to trespassing behavior, not owner activity. There has been little to no owner activity in this area since white settlers arrived a century and a half ago. For instance, there has been no fill dumped on the site, and no building of dikes or industrial activity has occurred like those along the Puyallup River. There is no toxic pollution on the site, whereas the Tacoma Smelter produced pollution that affected large swaths of Tacoma’s North End. Finally, there are no signs of toxic spills or toxic uses of any size.
In contrast, the biologist for the appellants, Dr. Sarah Spear Cooke, Past President of the Northwest Chapter of the Society of Wetland Scientists, wrote this in her appraisal of the Marsh:
“This site, situated adjacent to a major wetland complex (Spanaway Lake / Wetland) and within two large high-quality wetlands (A and B), is unsuitable for any development, because the construction and continued use of the property as a tiny house village with many active residents would cause an adverse impact to the wetlands and surrounding oak forest ecosystem for numerous reasons (detailed below) and further, the mitigation proposed would be highly inadequate to compensate for the clearly foreseeable and devastating impacts.”
Claudia Riiff Finseth is a published author. She lives in Parkland, where she has been involved in land use and environmental issues for over thirty years.