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Appellate panel weighs whether Oak Harbor ordinance allowing parkland swaps without a public vote required SEPA review
Summary
In Action Network v. City of Oak Harbor, counsel for Whidbey Environmental Action Network told an intermediate appellate court that Ordinance 19‑99, which prescribes the contents of development agreements for parkland exchanges, amounts to a non‑project action under SEPA and should have been reviewed before adoption; the city’s attorney argued the ordinance is a procedural change and SEPA review is properly phased later.
An intermediate appellate panel on the record heard competing arguments over whether Oak Harbor’s Ordinance 19‑99 triggered environmental review under the State Environmental Policy Act.
Brian Telligen, counsel for the plaintiff Whidbey Environmental Action Network, told the court that the 2024 ordinance “is about private land development in city parks,” pointing to Hal Remaley Memorial Park and a proposed hotel parking lot as the factual origin for the measure. Telligen said the ordinance prescribes what must go into development agreements—an exchange of private land for public land, a finding that the exchange benefits the city, parity of market value and attention to environmental standards and accessibility—and argued those are standards that control use or modification of the environment and therefore qualify the ordinance as a non‑project action subject to SEPA review.
“The ordinance sets out what must go into the development agreement,” Telligen said. “That is the subject of the ordinance: development agreements, what must go into them.” He urged the court to…
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