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The Normandy Park City Council on Aug. 9 directed City Manager Merlin MacReynold to file an appeal of the recent decision of the Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearing Board.

On July 20, the board held that Normandy Park's adopted comprehensive plan was "clearly erroneous" and "did not comply" with the Growth Management Act (GMA) and its goals.

This non-compliance, according to the board, is because the plan allows zoning of less than four dwelling units per acre.

Normandy Park Mayor John Wiltse stated, "The Board clearly overstepped their authority in this decision and we are not going to let them dictate to us that our city must have a minimum of four houses per acre."

Councilmember Stuart Creighton, who made the motion regarding the appeal, said, "The Growth Management Act recognizes that there are differences in communities; size, geography, population and community character, but the hearings board ruling dictates that all cities and towns will be exactly alike."

The hearing board directed the city to comply with the goals and requirements of the GMA, as they interpret it, by January 19, 2006.

Wiltse noted that this is a significant issue for all cities in the region that are within the GMA Urban Growth Area (UGA), and other cities have been contacted about joining Normandy Park in this appeal.

"They have no right to tell us that we have to change the character of our established community because three people have arbitrarily decided what appropriate urban densities should be for the whole region," Wiltse declared.

"The Legislature certainly did not give them that authority."

Normandy Park has 30 days to file an appeal and will be doing that in the next few days, according to the City Attorney Sue Sampson.

MacReynold believes that it may be in the best interests of the city and the region for Normandy Park to seek to move the appeal directly to the Court of Appeals.

"This is a regional issue concerning local control versus autocratic control for all cities in this region." MacReynold stated.

"Do cities wish to have control over their own destinies with reference to zoning and density or are they willing to give it up to some bureaucratic agency?"

Normandy Park's answer is clear, according to Mayor Wiltse,

"We will take this all the way to the State Supreme Court if we have to," he vowed. "We are not going to let them destroy the city of Normandy Park."