City of Tacoma announcement.
The City of Tacoma issued the land use permits for the Bridge Industrial Warehouse Project on April 21, 2023. Under consideration are two decisions, a Critical Areas Development permit for modification of the wetlands and stream on the site, and a State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) determination.
The City analyzed the permit application in accordance with the Zoning Code, Critical Areas Code and all other development codes and considered probable significant impacts in accordance with the SEPA regulations.
The Critical Areas Development Permit decision is “approved with conditions.” This means the project, as it has been revised over the last several months, has been reviewed for compliance with the Tacoma Municipal Code for critical areas and, if built with certain conditions, the development may be approved.
The associated SEPA Environmental Determination is a “Mitigated Determination of Nonsignificance.” This means the review of the entire project, as revised and with the additional studies that have been reviewed, is not likely to have a significant adverse impact on the elements of the environment that are reviewed under SEPA as long as the project meets certain conditions (mitigation) for the impacts.
The site is also located in the South Tacoma Manufacturing/Industrial Overlay District, per TMC 13.06.070.B, and the South Tacoma Groundwater Protection District, per TMC 13.06.070.D. Uses prohibited in either of those overlays will not be allowed on this site.
The site proposal intended use as light industrial or warehousing is an allowed use in the M-2 Heavy Industrial District, as set forth in TMC 13.06.060. City staff is required to use the approved and adopted codes, regulations and laws in carrying out day-to-day operations and all permits that are received and evaluated based on the code as approved the day the permit was received.
The Bridge BNSF Warehouse Project is legally “vested” in the current regulations via complete land use permits, and future moratoria or land use ordinance changes will not affect it.
A critical area development permit is required, because the development proposes to impact portions of the stream buffer on the site, while restoring the remaining critical area and creating additional new wetland area. All work is reviewed in compliance with TMC 13.11, Critical Areas.
Land Use permitting decisions are made administratively by the Director of Planning and Development Services, per TMC 13.05 Land Use Permits and Procedures. The decision is not made by the City Council or the Planning Commission.
Appeals to the decision can be filed with the City of Tacoma Hearing Examiner no later than May 5, 2023, at 5 p.m.
Following the Critical Area permitting and SEPA Environmental review, the applicant will be required to apply for development permits including Site Development, Work Order (work in the right-of-way), and Building.
The entire application package can be accessed by visiting the City’s Accela Page and entering the permit number LU21-0125 in the search field. Documents are located under the “record info” tab.
More information about the project, the permit process and the decision is available at cityoftacoma.org/bridgeindustrial.
