City was wrong to approve huge warehouse project in South Tacoma, newly filed appeal says
A nonprofit that provides legal representation in environmental cases has filed an appeal with Tacoma’s hearing examiner over a recently approved mega-warehouse development in South Tacoma.
Attorneys with Earthjustice of Seattle are representing environmental group 350 Tacoma and the South Tacoma Neighborhood Council in the appeal, filed Friday with the city.
An LLC connected to Chicago-based Bridge Industrial gained conditional approval last month from the city’s director of Planning and Development Services for its plans to redevelop the approximately 150-acre property, 5024 S. Madison St., with a multi-building warehouse-distribution site, including about 2.5 million square feet of buildings.
The appeal relates to the project’s Mitigated Determination of Nonsignificance and Critical Area Development Permit.
The appeal contends the permitting decision violates Washington’s State Environmental Policy Act and asks the city’s hearing examiner to reverse the SEPA determination and issuance of a land-use permit, and order the city to do a full review of the project’s environmental and health impacts.
The filing, a copy of which was made public by Earthjustice representatives, states that the appellants “challenge the City of Tacoma’s decision not to require an Environmental Impact Statement for applicant Bridge Industrial’s project to build one of the largest warehouse complexes in the world in a neighborhood that is already overburdened by air pollution and other environmental harms.”
The filing contends that “many of the documents from the developer that the City relied on in issuing its MDNS were submitted after the public comment period closed, meaning that the public did not have an opportunity to evaluate or respond to those materials.”
It added, “The City’s issuance of an MDNS under the circumstances here undermines SEPA’s core purposes of transparency and public engagement.”
Megan Snow, media representative for the city, said via email in response to questions Friday, “At this time we can confirm that an appeal has been received.”
In regards to further response, Snow wrote that “to ensure the integrity of the process, the Hearing Examiner’s Office will not comment or provide information about the appeal while the matter is pending.”
In September 2021, Bellevue-based Bridge Point Tacoma LLC, representing Bridge Industrial, purchased an assemblage of vacant parcels in the South Burlington Way area from BNSF Railway of Fort Worth for $158.3 million. The purchase followed a pre-application developers filed with the city in February 2021.
The project has attracted its share of critics as it has worked through city permitting. Opponents have included residents near the site, as well as others concerned with the environmental ramifications of such development.
In a statement, Bridge Industrial told The News Tribune via email Friday that it agreed with the city’s decision on its SEPA determination, “which reflects the many measures that will be implemented to improve the existing site and guard against potential impacts.”
“The project will vastly improve upon the current conditions of this contaminated site, utilizing best practices to remove polluted soil and protect both the on-site waterways, as well as the South Tacoma aquifer, while also substantially advancing the City’s tree canopy coverage initiative,” Bridge said in its statement.
“In addition, the project will achieve a LEED Silver level of sustainability, create bicycle and pedestrian pathways, implement measures to reduce air quality impacts from vehicles, and contribute traffic improvements to benefit the surrounding neighborhood,” it added.
Details of appeal
The filing states in its introduction, “Appellants will demonstrate, even with the proposed mitigation, the project is likely to have a ‘probable, significant adverse environmental impact’ on many elements of the environment covered under SEPA, including traffic, air quality, climate and energy, environmental health, water and public water supplies, fish and fish habitat, housing, aesthetics, noise, light and glare, and recreation and parks.”
Molly Tack-Hooper is supervising senior attorney for Earthjustice’s Northwest Office in Seattle and one of the representing attorneys in the appeal.
In an interview Thursday, she told The News Tribune that her office had been monitoring the project’s status since last year, and “have been in touch with advocates in the community and 350 (Tacoma) and the South Tacoma Neighborhood Council pretty much since then.”
“One of the biggest things that had not been submitted at the time of the public comment period was the air quality study,” she told The News Tribune. “So last spring, when folks were working on public comments, there had been no analysis of the air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions that the project would produce. That all came in after the public comment period closed, which we think is really problematic.”
She added, “When you’re talking about one of the biggest warehouses in the world, that’s going to attract many thousands of heavy duty diesel trucks, there are obvious significant air pollution and climate pollution impacts.”
In the city’s report, it lists an air-quality study dated July 15, 2022, and an addendum dated earlier, May 24, 2022. The project’s public comment period closed April 21, 2022.
In addition to comments at numerous City Council meetings and during a separate public meeting about the project, nonprofit environmental group Communities for a Healthy Bay issued a release in April 2022 calling for residents to submit comments to the city requesting an EIS for the project.
The property sits above a remediated Superfund site and is in the South Tacoma Groundwater Protection District, which is also a portion of Tacoma’s aquifer recharge area.
The city’s permit report stated that a “Review by the Tacoma Water Division of Tacoma Public Utilities indicates no probable adverse impacts from the proposal related to water supply or water quality, provided surface water regulations are complied with.”
The appeal contends that “the MDNS and Critical Area Development Permit decision fail to account or mitigate for impacts to the South Tacoma Aquifer from paving over 75 percent of the approximately 150-acre project site.”
Besides air quality, Tack-Hooper said, “the MDNS was just so dismissive of the project’s climate impacts.”
“This project does feel like the city missed the big picture,” Tack-Hooper said. “I was really hopeful that after the outpouring of public comments, and the alarm that it caused when the city announced that they were planning to do a mitigated determination of nonsignificance, that they’d rethink that and just do a full environmental review.”
“But that’s not what they did, even though it took them a year to essentially double down on that original decision,” she added.
In a news release Friday from Earthjustice, South Tacoma Neighborhood Council said: “In South Tacoma and throughout the state and country, people of color and low-income people are disproportionately exposed to harmful air and water pollution and other environmental burdens. ... It is high time for the city to start taking a closer look at industrial projects in overburdened communities before greenlighting them.”
350 Tacoma said in its statement: “Washington desperately needs to be cutting back on greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector to meet our climate targets and minimize devastation to our communities. We’re confident that a full environmental study will show that the proposed project is incompatible with the progress that the state, county, and city need to make on climate.”
Bridge, in its statement Friday, said, “We remain committed to finding additional ways the project can reflect a high standard for environmental responsibility as we move forward.”
As for a timeline on the appeal, city representatives explained that in general the time from filing to a decision is 6 months or less, though it could take longer depending on parties’ need for preparation, discovery, motion filing in advance of the hearing.
The hearing examiner’s decision on the appeal could later be challenged in Superior Court.
