10th Avenue property acquisition completed

POULSBO — A short plat is just a short plat unless it happens to be for the property purchased in 2005 by the city of Poulsbo to build a city hall.

However, the June 13 approval doesn’t mean city officials are prepared to move city hall out of downtown just yet. Or at all.

“There’s nothing new,” Councilman Jim Henry said. “It’s all in keeping with what we started before.”

The short plat was one of the conditions for the purchase of the 10th Avenue property from the Olympic Property Group, said Councilman Ed Stern.

“It doesn’t reflect any change in direction or change in status,” Stern said. “It was one of the conditions of the city purchasing the property.”

Also included in the short plat was the change in the wetlands buffers for the site, which was prompted by an appeal of the original city hall plan by the Suquamish Tribe, Planning Director Barry Berezowsky said.

“The short plat now shows 40-foot buffers around all of the wetlands on the site,” Berezowsky said. The original plan included buffer averaging.

When the city purchased the OPG property, someone had to segue OPG’s corporate offices from the city-owned property, which was accomplished through the short plat, Berezowsky said.

The short plat itself doesn’t mean development is imminent on the site either, he said.

“If anyone were going to develop it, either the city or anyone the city sells it to, they would at least have to do a site plan review,” Berezowsky said.

Another important element of the settlement agreement reached with the Suquamish Tribe is the city’s public works facility on Iverson Street will be relocated by April 2012, Councilman Mike Regis said.

The actual short plat process itself began when the city purchased the property, but it was halted because of the tribe’s appeal, he said.

Once the tribe’s appeal was settled, there was another State Environmental Policy Act process that had to be completed in order for the final short plat to be approved, he said.

“This is just a continuation of what was already started. It allows OPG to sell their piece of land (on the east side of 10th Avenue),” Regis said.

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