A PROPOSED SEWER extension from this La Center plant would help the Cowlitz Tribe reach its goal of opening a casino at the I-5 junction.
The state Growth Management Hearings Board has rejected a proposed sewer line extension from La Center to its interchange with I-5, a project in partnership with the Cowlitz Tribe that is intended to allow future construction of a casino.
The Aug. 11 board decision was made, in part, because the extension would “extend government services to a non-urban area in a way that will encourage urban development,” according to the board’s ruling. The board remanded the issue to La Center officials, saying the City must come into compliance with the Growth Management Act, which prevents urban development outside a city’s growth management area.
Dan Kearns, La Center’s attorney, said during an interview the ruling seems to be at odds with the state’s land-use philosophy of development based on long-term planning.
“The whole land use program is premised on a 20-year horizon, but the board is telling us not to plan,” Kearns said.
John Bockmier, who represents the La Center card rooms opposed to the extension, called the ruling the correct decision. He noted it’s the third time the board has declined to approve the plan.
“With this decision, the Cowlitz Casino’s development team has suffered yet another setback in its longstanding and ill-fated attempt to build a massive casino in a location that is contrary to the best interest of the public and the laws of the County and State,” Bockmier wrote in an email to The Reflector.
“It is time for the Tribe to find a new site within its traditional land base and for La Center to abandon its efforts to aid a casino that destroys their own tax base and conflicts with the land use plan that has been adopted through the State’s Growth Management Act process,’’ Bockmier added. “The Tribe should abandon this site now and look for a new location within its historic land base to the north.”
The tribe owns 152 acres at the I-5 La Center interchange that is zoned for agricultural use.
The hearings board said in its ruling, “Any decision which would potentially lead to the loss of important designated agricultural resource land is premature. The pressure to convert these lands, especially in areas impacted by population growth and development, is even more prevalent today.”
The City filed for a reconsideration of the decision, Kearns said, adding a response from the board should come within a month. He noted that if the Bureau of Indian Affairs should take the Cowlitz land into trust, as the tribe wants, that shift would allow the sewer extension to proceed.
“If the land is taken into trust, it would not be subject to state law and what’s urban and what’s rural,” Kearns said. “None of the prohibitions under the Growth Management Act would apply.”
He predicted the case will eventually reach the state Appeals Court. Bockmier agreed that’s likely to happen.
“The sewer line would be sized to serve a tribal casino, restaurants and retail space, a 250-word hotel, parking structures for more than 7,000 vehicles, a recreational vehicle park, and tribal elder housing and tribal officers,” according to the hearings board’s ruling.
Approving the sewer extension request “encourages sprawl or leapfrogging development,” board members wrote in their decision.
