Council delays approval of surf-park buildings over water-treatment and disposal questions

Washington City Council on Aug. 27, 2025, voted to table consideration of conditional use permit CD-25-07 — a zoning approval for two commercial buildings linked to a proposed Zion Shores surf facility at Groves Parkway and Waters Edge Way — until the council can review technical engineering plans and hear from the project’s water-treatment engineers.

The item was continued after council members pressed staff and the applicant for more detail about how highly brackish lagoon water would be treated, where solids would go and how the city’s development agreement and building-permit process would be used to enforce conditions.

The project as presented to the council would occupy about 8.83 acres and includes a 6,000-square-foot retail building (board shop and check-in), a 32,568-square-foot wave-generator facility and ancillary structures such as cabanas and a jumping rock. Staff said the parcel is zoned planned commercial development (PCD) with a hospitality designation and that the city’s zoning code requires conditional use permits for new commercial buildings of 5,000 square feet or larger; Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval at its Aug. 20 meeting.

"Zoning regulations require new commercial…