A Sammamish hearing examiner denied a developer’s request last week to construct a 30-lot residential neighborhood in an area that would have required constructing a bridge over the salmon-bearing Ebright Creek to access it.

The developer plans to appeal the decision by the August deadline, President Carl Buchan of William E. Buchan Inc. said Wednesday, July 22.

Still, the examiner’s decision came with a sigh of relief from residents who appealed the city’s reduction and variations to code they argued put Ebright and Pine Lake Creek at risk, as well as the freshwater salmon that spawn there.

“We’re very pleased,” said Ilene Stahl, former president of Friends of Pine Lake, a grassroots organization involved in the appeal, “because the hearing examiner, in his decision, recognized the value of Ebright Creek. It used to be one of the best runs of kokanee in the basin.”

The once-booming kokanee population plummeted in the ’80s. The Kokanee Work Group has been spearheading efforts to bring the population back to a sustainable level through state, county and local government partnerships, as well as with support from Native American tribes and community groups.

Every year, as a way to maintain the species, kokanee eggs are collected from spawning sites, raised in the Issaquah State Salmon Hatchery and then released back into the stream.

Kokanee Work Group member Wally Pereyra of Sammamish has lived near Ebright Creek for around 40 years. He has dedicated himself and his money to rehabilitating the stream that runs through his property, even buying up surrounding land to further habitat restoration.

He appealed the environmental exceptions the hearing examiner granted to William E. Buchan Inc., to build the bridge and develop near the Ebright Creek ravine.

While his appeal was only granted in part, it was still a positive outcome due the nature of the examiner’s decision, Pereyra said. The Friends of Pine Lake appeal was dismissed entirely.

These rulings were a result of the hearing examiner’s decision to deny altering the existing plat for Chestnut Estates, so it could connect to a new one. Buchan proposed extending Southeast Eighth Place, a cul-de-sac within the existing neighborhood.

The city had granted certain exceptions to allow this in December 2014, causing current Chestnut Estates residents to appeal the decision.

Ultimately, the hearing examiner ruled against the plat alteration to the existing neighborhood on July 14, effectively denying the proposed development due to its lacking access, which the examiner’s reports states was “a hardship created in part by Buchan.”

The decision also dismissed, in part, the current Chestnut neighbors’ environmental and public work standards appeal.

The open hearing started April 22 and totaled 86 hours over 12 days spaced out through June 30, according to the 44-page hearing examiner report, logging “some 1,100 pages of public comment.”

Buchan began the process to develop Chestnut Estates in 1997; it was approved in 2004, after the city incorporated, but the plans adhere to King County codes from the ’90s.

Southeast Eighth Place, for example, was built under 1993 county street standards “intended to serve 16 or less lots” within Chestnut Estates, according to the report. The hearing examiner assumes this was acceptable, considering it was “a street which was to go no further,” the report reads.

In order to access the new development, however, this dead end would become the only entrance and exit for three dozen new residences.

The hearing examiner describes this as “substandard access” to the new residences, because the road would not meet more recent city standards due to city-issued variances in 2014. The hearing examiner wrote that the city “has no obligation to bend its rules to make up for Buchan’s prior, deliberate actions.”

“In hindsight, the evidence is quite persuasive that Buchan likely had an intention (or, at the very least, wanted to preserve the opportunity) to extend SE 8th Place … to serve development of property on the west side of the Ebright Creek ravine,” the report reads. “Buchan created what the purchasers of its homes in Chestnut Estates see as a ‘bait and switch’ tactic: Sell them on an intimate, exclusive, dead-end neighborhood and then convert it into the entry way [sic] to an additional neighborhood of at least 30 more homes.”

Carl Buchan, president of William E. Buchan Inc., denies this, saying the formation of Chestnut Estates West took shape over time.

“No, it was never our intention to mislead or ‘bait and switch,’” he said last week. “Chestnut West evolved and our intention evolved.”

Buchan acquired the majority of the Chestnut Estates West area, about 50 acres, in 2011.

In talks with the city, the permitting process that began in 2011 was “fraught with controversy and tension,” according to the examiner’s report.

The three-year deliberation ended early December 2014, when the city approved the development with some reductions and variances.

The examiner, in his review, questioned several staff decisions, ultimately ruling against them.

“In most of our cases over the past 15 years, hearing examiners have agreed with the city’s perspective. But not always,” Sammamish Communications Director Tim Larson stated in an email. “We will respect the hearing examiner’s decision.”

The developer has until Aug. 4 to file its appeal with King County Superior Court.