Shelton Hills Rezone Approved -
submitted by Tom Davis

 On February 9, 2012

The Thurston County Superior Court ruled in favor of the City of Shelton and Shelton Hills Investors LLC and upheld  the City’s decision to rezone 160 acres of the Shelton Hills property to residential.  This overturns two previous decisions by the Western Washington Growth Management Hearing Board against the City and Shelton Hills Investors.  The Superior Court ruled that there is substantial evidence in the record to support the City’s decision to rezone, and that the City had taken all necessary steps to comply with the law and the required consultation with the WSDOT Aviation Division.  With this decision, the rezone is effective and the Shelton Hills project can move forward as planned.  Mark Hall, President of Hall Equities Group, developer of the Shelton Hills project, stated;

“We are pleased with this decision and we believe this should bring to a close, once and for all, the controversy surrounding our carefully prepared and studied application. We look forward to a positive working relationship with the Port of Shelton, and we hope the Port will join us in a constructive manner going forward to create an environment where jobs, retail services,  and quality housing can coexist harmoniously with Sanderson Field operations.”

Shelton Hills is one of the largest private projects ever undertaken in Mason County. The Shelton Hills project is expected to consist of a major regional retail center and hotel totaling some 500,000 square feet on more than 45 acres, a 50 acre professionally designed  Business Park offering build-to-suit and “For Sale” commercial office buildings for area businesses, over 350 acres of new Public Parks, trails, and wetland reserves, and over 1,000 new residential units of varying types and sizes. The Project is expected to cover some 800 acres in total west of Highway 101 near the Wallace Kneeland Interchange. Hall Equities Group has spent over five years working with the City of Shelton, The State Department of Transportation, The State Department of Ecology, and other interested stakeholders to secure approvals for the design and re-construction of the Wallace Kneeland Interchange at Highway 101, and various environmental remediation’s to impacted wetlands in the area of Goose Lake, as necessary preliminary groundwork needed for the project to proceed.

The project has been effectively stalled for the last two and a half years by the legal challenge brought by the Port of Shelton against the project. Resolution of this conflict now allows this project to move forward.

Shelton blog note:  I hope they contact the native plant salvage project before they start building.  Also will Goose lake be cleaned up, and all the toxins removed?  That lake is the former dumping ground for Rayonier's Shelton pulp mill.  Children living in the new neighborhood will want to play in goose lake and there will be no way to keep them out.  And one other thing, what of all the homeless people who currently live at Goose Lake.  Where will they be moved to?  Will they be given a relocation allowance?