Seattle couple outguns city in demolition dust-up
On the 40th floor of a Seattle skyscraper, in a nondescript hearing room, a young Queen Anne couple sat on one side of a long table. On the other side sat their opponents -- lawyers defending a city permit to tear down an old church next door to the couple's rented house.
On this particular day, the Queen Anne couple, Tyler Crone and Jorge Barón, looked far less like the working parents of a 3-year-old daughter and 15-month-old son and more like who they also happen to be: Yale-educated attorneys, one with a master's in public health, both on a mission. There the couple sat, confident, attired in suits, with briefcases of exhibits -- and armed with witnesses who pounded home a single, emotional message: Don't poison our children with a toxic cloud of lead dust.
Bill Merkle, a real-estate broker involved in the deal to develop the church property, watched the spectacle with frustration, having never before seen such formidable neighborhood resistance to a demolition.
"Every single building that ever comes down in Seattle has lead in it if it was built prior to 1978," Merkle said.
On Wednesday, deputy hearing examiner Anne Watanabe handed the couple and their neighbors a small victory. She ruled that the city Department of Planning and Development (DPD) didn't follow its own rules in assessing environmental impact before issuing a permit to demolish the Seventh Church of Christ, Scientist.
Her decision was unusual. "Most permit decisions are not appealed and most appeals are not remanded," said Robert Tobin, the city attorney assigned to the case.
Watanabe ordered the city to restart the review process. While the demolition permit is expected to be approved, the question is how far the church must go to protect neighbors from dangerous dust.
The Queen Anne couple say they are not opposed to the demolition itself, wanting only to make sure that the neighborhood is sufficiently protected from lead, a known brain toxin phased out of gasoline decades ago. In building their case, they said, they have found a crack in the laws intended to protect the public from such hazards.
They are mounting a campaign about the dangers of demolishing old houses and buildings amid a citywide boom in condo construction.
"We thought Seattle was progressive," said Barón, who moved here with his family from Connecticut last year. "This is one area where we're behind the curve."
Alan Justad, a spokesman for the city department, said he couldn't comment on the decision's implications because the staff was still reviewing it. As for which agency regulates lead fallout during demolition, Justad said, "it's kind of complicated."
Built in 1926, the Seventh Church of Christ, Scientist is long past its heyday. The congregation tried for two years to sell the aging building to a buyer who would preserve its historical exterior. Those efforts failed.
Last summer the church signed a deal with developer David Fletcher, who plans to construct four single-family houses on the parcel. The deal won't go through unless the congregation gets a permit to demolish its building.
When a large white board went up in front of the church last fall notifying the neighbors of the demolition, Crone and Barón had barely unpacked their belongings. The couple, both 34, met at law school and married.
Their living room speaks of awareness and affluence: a plastic childproof fence in front of the fireplace and a child's dining table with little toy figures from South America and Asia.
Crone flies to Mexico City, Boston and other cities for global-health conferences while setting up her own nonprofit to serve as an advocate for HIV-positive women in poor nations.
They had had the lead levels in their children's blood measured before they moved to Seattle and plan to continue doing so if the church demolition proceeds.
In many parts of the Northeast, laws provide for annual screening of children for lead. But here, it appears, there's confusion among local and state agencies about who, if anyone, regulates lead emissions during demolitions.
"There are no regulations for lead paint that would apply directly to this proposal," wrote Watanabe, the hearing examiner. Given the city's desire to protect citizens from hazards, the planning and development department has "a particularly important role in evaluating the potential impacts from toxic or hazardous materials that fall largely outside the review of other agencies."
Watanabe said the department failed to do that in this case, deciding in February to issue the demolition permit before it had reviewed a study of the church's paint.
A local testing firm, NVL Labs, found some parts of the church's exterior contained high levels of lead.
At least 15 children age 6 or younger live within one block of the church, the couple told the examiner. Several of their parents testified at the hearing. Robin Mendelson, who is due to give birth to her first child in August, lives across the street from the church. She worries that her two cats will track lead dust into her house, exposing her child to it.
The demolition would have taken place by now had Crone and Barón not filed the appeal, she said. "It shouldn't require, it seems to me, that level of awareness."
Crone and Barón asked for a containment structure using scaffolding and plastic sheeting to shield their yard from the church, which rises some 30 feet. Instead, at the hearing the church proposed an 8-foot fence.
The church's attorney, Richard Hill, says the church's plan goes beyond legal requirements: The plan includes building fencing, spraying water during demolition and debris removal, avoiding demolition during high winds, controlling erosion, removing lead chips from soil, and monitoring air and dust during demolition.
Scott Davis, board chairman for the church, says he hopes to settle the issues with the neighbors shortly: "We hope in the next couple of weeks we can work out a practical compromise on the mitigation plan that everyone can be happy with."
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