FCCs again proposed for County

On May 24, the Skagit County Commissioners took public testimony on proposed amendments to the county comprehensive plan.

One of those proposals is LR 22-02, to amend the county comprehensive plan to allow fully contained communities (FCCs) to be built in Skagit County. This proposal was submitted by Bill Sygitowicz, a Bellingham developer. If this feels like deja vu, that is because Sygitowicz was behind the same proposal, as LR 20-04, a year ago.

In 2021, county commissioners agreed to docket LR20-04 and consider an FCC amendment. Public sentiment came in strongly against the proposal, with over 700 public comments submitted in a short period of time. Four city councils – Anacortes, La Conner, Mount Vernon and Sedro Woolley – stated their opposition. The group Right Growth, Right Place, a campaign of diverse local organizations and citizens, mobilized against the amendment.

The opposition also maintains that the developer’s proposal did not follow the appropriate process, which outlines that such an amendment must first be considered by the Growth Management Act Steering Committee.

In February, the county commissioners agreed. They passed a resolution to defer the proposal until it had been reviewed and approved by the GMASC. The GMASC is composed of the three county commissioners and the mayors of Anacortes, Burlington, Concrete, Hamilton, La Conner, Lyman, Mount Vernon and Sedro-Woolley.

The county planning department has now recommended deferring, rather than accepting or declining, LR22–04.

At the recent meeting, the developer again made his case for large scale housing to be built on rural county lands, saying the cities had not absorbed enough population growth. Seeming to fault the cities for failing to develop, Sygitowicz said that “Government is the problem, not the solution.”

Sygitowicz stated that a group of “NIMBYs” (not in my backyard) had “inundated the county with pleas to ban anything like FCCs.” He countered that there were also those, such as builders, who were “YIMBYs” – yes, in my backyard. He emphasized that his proposal was not about a specific location. He ended his testimony by saying that Skagit County “had kicked this can down the road long enough.”

Citizen comments included those who felt it would send the wrong message if the county deferred LR22-02, saying the county resolution to defer the issue in February made it clear that the proposal needed to follow the appropriate process and should not be docketed prematurely.

Others took exception to the developer’s reference to NIMBYs, saying that those who opposed FCCs were looking out for the long range health of the community and its farmlands and wanted the county to develop responsibly.

One citizen respondent said that the fact the proposal was so general and not about a specific location made it impossible to adequately analyze.

The commissioners will decide which proposals to docket for consideration in 2022 on July 14. A recording of the May 24 public meeting is on the County website.