The proposed Tiny Home Village, or Pierce County Village that the County and Tacoma Rescue Mission are working to locate between Spanaway Marsh and Spanaway Lake is addressed in these comments by Cindy Beckett, Master Watershed Steward.

In Cindy’s words:

I hope you know that this is being challenged in a court with representation by Tim Trohimovich, and separately I am filing a formal complaint against the region 10 HUD office via the parent HUD office in DC, as they are funding a project that is illegal under HUD guidelines.  I have a file with all the info on what laws and regulations HUD operates under, and they (region 10) are in serious violation of their own guidelines by permitting the breaking of several Federal laws.  That is not allowed. 

The more serious law that Pierce County broke is not having an RO (Responsible officer) at the meetings (mandatory), and no notices were sent to the surrounding lake shore homeowners.  The RO issue has already been won by folks in Olympia, who took it to the GMHB (hearings board) who ruled against Olympia and overturned their comp plan due to no RO being at the meetings or contacting any of those who would be greatly impacted. Tim represented them there too.   I called the GMHB and told them we have the same issue here at the lake, do we need to file, they said no, once they have ruled on an issue, it becomes an “us too” and their ruling will stand for the lake group as well.  No lawyers needed.  Hopefully, they won’t have to do it, but the option is there.  

Many contacted the county council suggesting to make smaller villages in the UGA where the communities would help those folks, but all of that was ignored as they had already taken the HUD money and bought the lake properties.  Other issues include the change in ownership of those lakeside parcels 3 times over a short time span, including changed owner’s names on a Sunday when the office was closed.  Lots of “oddities” in this one for sure.  It remains that the parcels at the lakeside have wetlands on them that they plan to fill (illegal) and a waterway flows from the south into the lake on one of the parcels, so in effect is non buildable land.  This is per the GIS map, which planning actually believed were their maps to change at whim.   I had to get Fed FEMA to correct that misconception.  They are FEMA Federal overlays for flood insurance purposes and they are only put on properties that have water.  FEMA uses very high tech ground penetrating cameras that scan through the surface for water that could flood the surface.

All the voices from the communities are a great help and I hope folks will continue to raise them and pass on the info to others as well.  Pierce County is not above the law and never has been.  Creating 100% impervious surface on those parcels right beside the lake is not legal as that lake is Federally acknowledged – the water that leaves that lake then flows north, ultimately into Chambers Bay – Orca waters.  Currently the Orcas in Budd Inlet are formally listed as threatened with extinction,  and are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA)  that neither the county or the state has authority over.  If Pierce County had actual bonafide water specialists on staff they would have raised that issue immediately.  If Pierce County had an actual lawyer familiar with these laws and Acts, they would not have approved this.  The MMPA is listed on the Federal Register and is a very important Act as it deals with the extinction of a species.  No one from the county contacted the agencies who enforce this Act, either.