Although the dust has yet to settle over a now-infamous waterfront clearcut at the former Mar Vista Resort, the property’s new owners are in pursuit of a dock.
Not just any dock, but a 271-foot-long dock that can accommodate up to six boats, 20-30 feet in length, and a stone’s throw from San Juan Island’s False Bay.
Owners Dave and Nancy Honeywell intend to develop a “family compound” with six homes on the 30-acre parcel by building a residence and rehabilitating and remodeling some of the former resort cabins and the caretaker house, according to Francine Shaw of the Friday Harbor-based Law Office of Stephanie O’Day.
Shaw said local regulations allow each of the six waterfront homes access to a dock, but the property may have to be sub-divided into separate parcels for the dock, and for the remodel and construction projects, to proceed.
“The county may require us to sub-divide, but that hasn’t been decided yet,” Shaw said.
In response to the dock application, San Juan County’s Community Development and Planning Department determined that the dock poses no significant adverse impact on the environment, thus issuing a Determination of Non-Significance following its review of the State Environmental Policy Act. Deadline for comment on the dock proposal is June 25. The proposal is slated to go before the county hearing examiner on Aug. 11.
The dock would be located in a “pocket beach,” roughly 50-100 feet beyond the University of Washington’s biological preserve at False Bay, Shaw said.
A proposal to build a “joint-use, community dock” is the latest eyebrow-raiser surrounding the new owners of the former resort, one of the larger contiguous waterfront properties on the westside of San Juan. Shaw said that the dock’s design consists of materials that would allow about 70 percent of sunlight to pass through the structure to the seafloor below. It would be removed during winter months to protect it from exposure to weather, then reinstalled in late May and remain in place until late October. The application for the dock was submitted to the planning department March 28, several days before the update of the critical areas ordinance went into effect.
The Honeywells, formerly of Virginia and winners of a nine-figure Powerball jackpot in February 2013, purchased the property a little over a year ago for $6 million.
In early February, San Juan County issued a “notice of violation” after nearly two acres of waterfront at the property were denuded of trees, shrubs and vegetation in late December without proper permits. The county subsequently fined David Honeywell $1,000 and fined Allen Engle of Solid Ground, whose contracting business oversaw removal of the vegetation, $2,000 for the violation; the fines have reportedly been paid.
The county, along with the Department of Ecology, also required that a restoration plan be prepared for the denuded area of shoreline and submitted for approval of both agencies. That plan is still in the works, according to Bob Fritzen of Ecology, which sent a warning of its own after the waterfront clearcut for violating the Water Pollution Control Act. The restoration plan’s date has been pushed back until August by the county, Fritzen said.
