Hearing examiner presses city reviewers on parking, wetlands and Shoreline Master Program compliance in Lake Forest Park park permit appeal

At a continued permit hearing before the Lake Forest Park hearing examiner, witnesses and counsel disputed parking tallies, wetland boundaries and whether proposed park uses fit the city’s Shoreline Master Program.

Professor Fudge, a witness for the appellant, told the examiner that his testimony had been misread in cross-examination and clarified that the project’s park component, as he understands it, needs 52 parking spaces while a separate 44-space requirement for the community building comes from the city’s parking evaluation and the municipal code. “I believe that, yeah,” he said, referring to the city’s parking report and Exhibit 16. Counsel pressed him on an apparent 52-versus-96 discrepancy; Fudge said the 44 is an additional code-derived total for the building and that his on-screen impervious-surface calculations (an 80% increase) were prepared for comments and were not immediately available at the hearing.

The…