Conveyor Belt Loses Again

The proposal to build a conveyor belt through the city of Des Moines, for possible use in moving fill material to the third-runway site, has lost again, this time before the hearing examiner for the City. The project proponent claimed that the City Council should have granted a construction permit. The Council refused, because the proponent did not own or control the property where the conveyor would be built. The hearing examiner agreed, after a hearing on 11 June.
The next step would be an appeal to Superior Court.
The project is proposed by Hank Hopkins, owner of a conveyor-belt company known as Wescot. This is his second attempt to secure planning permission from the City. In the late 1990s, he asked for a change in the City's comprehensive plan, to make conveyor belts a legal land use on the City's beach and in the Des Moines Creek Park. An environmental impact statement (EIS) was prepared, which was the subject of a contentious, emotional hearing. Most members of the public were outraged. The City Council decided not to change the plan. Hopkins appealed to the Growth Management Hearings Board, but reached a compromise with the City. His appeal was withdrawn, but he was allowed to make another request for the change, using the existing EIS.
However, instead of asking for a change in the plan, he decided in Spring 2002 simply to apply for a permit to build. He made a new presentation about his project to the Des Moines City Council on 21 March 2002. The Council took no action, but some members made comments generally supporting the proposal.
When the application was filed, City staff noted that Hopkins did not own (or control) any of the property where he wanted to build. Staff pointed this out to the Council as a fatal defect--which could be cured if the Council wished to become a co-sponsor.
Councilmembers sat silent, and City staff said, on the record, that they understood that the application would have to be denied, as it was.
At the hearing on 11 June, Mr Hopkins' lawyers argued three main points.
First, they maintained, the Council pre-approved the permit application in Councilmember comments at the Council's meeting on 21 March. However, the record of the Council meeting shows that the Council took no official action about the conveyor, except to hear and see the presentation.
The second argument was that it was the City's job to advise Mr Hopkins that he had to have an ownership interest in the real estate involved, not the job of Mr Hopkins or his attorneys to research the law. Therefore, they argued, the City's "failure" to advise about that ownership requirement negates the ownership requirements in the City's ordinance. This was a non-starter—people seeking permits are responsible for checking the legal requirements, and the City staff told the Hearing Examiner that they had in fact mentioned the ownership requirement.
A more germane argument relied on the Growth Management Act (GMA). The Wescot/Hopkins lawyers contended that under the GMA the conveyor belt was a necessary project because of its potential use for third-runway purposes, and therefore the City was legally required to process the application, regardless of who owned the land.
The City's Planning Director agreed that under GMA the runway is considered to be a "necessary project", but the conveyor belt was not, because there were other viable alternatives for delivering the fill materials to Sea-Tac.