Vancouver fumbles rule in site cleanup
29 acres - A permit is issued sans environmental review, prompting demolition to stop at the Boise Cascade property
Saturday, September 30, 2006
ALLAN BRETTMAN
The Oregonian
VANCOUVER -- You can't accuse city officials of too much bureaucratese on this one.
Boise Cascade is preparing 29 acres on the Columbia River for sale to developers. That preparation includes knocking down buildings and cleaning up debris.
When a contractor obtained a demolition permit Aug. 2 -- the day after an investment group announced plans to buy the property -- the city granted it quickly. Destruction of buildings -- some dating to the 1920s -- began soon afterward.
One problem: The city neglected its environmental rules in granting the permit.
Before issuing the permit, the city should have conducted an environmental review as required under the Washington State Environmental Policy Act, or SEPA. Six weeks after telling the demolition company it could start, the city had to tell them to stop.
"We missed it," said David Scott, the city's manager of Development Review Services.
Not only that, but several buildings have been leveled without so much as a look to see whether they may be worth preserving -- as a city-funded consultant recommended earlier this year. Two of those buildings were nearly a century old.
The environmental review -- which has focused primarily on dust, noise and erosion -- began Sept. 20 and is expected to be completed Wednesday. Barring objection, demolition would resume Thursday.
Obtaining the required demolition documents is just the latest procedural hurdle Boise has scaled to sell the property, which had been widely coveted for its choice riverside location but dogged by rumors of environmental taint. The state Department of Ecology quashed that talk in early July when it pronounced the site clean. And with demolition expected to be completed by the end of November, the property could be sold soon afterward.
Boise has owned the property, located roughly south of downtown Vancouver west of the Interstate Bridge, since 1962.
The corporation has been working with Ecology for about two years to assess four areas: lead at the site of a warehouse fire, heavy oil at a parts washing and former fuel tank, diesel and heavy oil in a paper storage area, and an oil plume that likely is migrating from a neighbor's property. The first three were cleaned up; the last, located at the northwest corner of the property, requires monitoring as Boise negotiates a cleanup plan with the neighbor, said Paul Skyllingstad, an Ecology hydrologist and its Boise site manager.
For property that had been used as a lumber mill since at least 1911 and a paper mill since 1928, it was pretty clean, Skyllingstad said.
Boise did its own environmental site analysis about two years ago, Skyllingstad said, "and found, wow, we don't have much of a problem here. Let's sell it."
On Aug. 1, a group of Clark County investors, led by Gramor Development of Tualatin, announced an agreement with Boise to purchase the mill property "provided infrastructure concerns can be satisfied."
A closing is expected before year's end. A sale price has not been announced.
The group has said "high-end" condominiums, rental housing, offices, stores, restaurants and public open spaces are envisioned.
The buyers won't have a chance to see if any of the large brick buildings on the site could have served a potential reuse, perhaps like the Portland Armory's second life as a theater, said Robert Freed, chairman of the Clark County Historic Preservation Commission.
"It's disappointing they didn't look at the possible use of these buildings before tearing them down," said Freed, an archeologist.
A consultant for the city recommends just that in a report issued earlier this year.
"Prior to issuance of a demolition permit, the (Boise) complex should be assessed for historical significance and integrity, and if portions of the complex are determined significant, then appropriate mitigation measures should apply," says a "City Center Vision" report that offers a blueprint for downtown's continuing redevelopment.
The report also says the Boise structures could not be surveyed because "access was denied." Boise spokesman Mike Moser said Boise officials told the city it did not want to participate in the study because "we didn't think it would be appropriate . . . since we were selling the property."
Allan Brettman: 360-896-5746 or 503-294-5900;
allanbrettman@news.oregonian.com
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