Business Community Government
New developer pitches a plan promising fewer houses at site next to Gig Harbor High School
A controversial plan to build 31 houses and import up to 60,000 cubic yards of fill on a swampy strip of property next to Gig Harbor High School might be on its way to the developmental dustbin, if a prospective new owner with a scaled-down vision for the site likes what it hears at a meeting with city planners and public works officials on Wednesday, Sept. 24.
MainVue Homes LLC of Bellevue proposes to build 20 houses at 5301 Rosedale St. and is pitching this as a way to preserve wetlands on the 39-acre property. The company is under contract to buy the land from Texas-based Gig Holding Company LLC, according to a letter from MainVue to the city.
The letter states that the purchase depends on the outcome of its feasibility study. MainVue hopes to get answers for that research at its pre-application meeting with city officials this week.
A prospective new owner of a planned development on Rosedale Street near Gig Harbor High School proposes 20 homes, instead of the previous 31.
Road plan tweaked
In addition to reducing the number of houses in the subdivision, the new plan scraps the public road Gig Holding Company wanted to run through the site, replacing it with a shorter dead-end private road. It also calls for different approaches to sewer service and stormwater management.
According to MainVue, Gig Holding Company “has decided to put the property up for sale ‘as is’ rather than continuing with the current applications.” Gig Holding Company did not respond to a request for comment.
Gig Holding Company’s plan sparked some opposition in Gig Harbor due to concerns over its effect on wetlands that cover 70 percent of the site. Opponents particularly disliked the developer’s proposal to bring in up to 60,000 cubic yards of fill, in order to raise the buildable portions of the property and facilitate drainage.
In April, the plan to add up to 60,000 cubic yards of fill at 5301 Rosedale Street got a thumbs up from the Gig Harbor’s all-volunteer Design Review Board, which approved the deviation from a city design standard that requires “cuts” — or earth removed from a site during development — to roughly equal “fills,” or material that is added.
Public comment
Leading up to the design panel meeting, the city received numerous written public comments on the project. Nearly all expressed concern over potential environmental damage. Worries about wetlands topped the list.
A handful of people attended the meeting to speak up. City officials told them that the board meeting was intended to discuss design issues only, and that a future hearing before the city’s Hearing Examiner would look at topics including habitat, wetlands and traffic.
The property proposed for development is directly adjacent to Gig Harbor High School.
Chair Darrin Filand commented at the Design Review Board meeting that Gig Holding Company’s plan did not appear to call for filling in wetlands, except where the proposed road crossed over a narrow section. In that instance, it provided for a culvert to allow the water through, he said.
“In regard to where I think they’re putting fill, they are weaving their solution, in my opinion, around the identified wetlands,” Filand said.
Mainvue proposal
MainVue is pitching its proposal as more friendly toward wetlands than Gig Holding Company’s. In an interview, MainVue president Vanessa Normandin noted that by reducing the number of homes and shortening the proposed road, their development would impact a smaller area of the site.
MainVue’s preliminary plan calls for fewer homes and a cul-de-sac instead of a through street.
MainVue’s project narrative states: “We do not plan to fill any wetlands, while also minimizing impacts to wetland buffers.” When asked in an interview whether the proposal will require fill anywhere on the site (including in areas outside the wetlands), Normandin stated she did not know, because the company’s plans are still preliminary.
For comparison, this was Gig Holding Company’s plan for 5301 Rosedale Street.
The company’s vision of a scaled-down development still faces hurdles with the city of Gig Harbor. Topics on the agenda for Wednesday’s pre-application meeting include MainVue’s proposal to eliminate the public road that was planned on the site.
Under Gig Holding Company’s proposal, that road would run northward from Rosedale Street and terminate in a cul-de-sac, but allow for future extension and connection to 54th Avenue. This link, when created, would provide a public through route from Rosedale Street to Bujacich Road.
No through traffic
MainVue’s proposed private road ends in a cul-de-sac that is not near the 54th Avenue right-of-way. It hopes the meeting will clarify whether the city can accept the loss of this potential public through-route.
“That’s a big question,” Normandin said. City officials declined to comment.
In support of eliminating the public road, MainVue argues in its narrative that traffic from businesses on Bujacich Road should not be routed through a low-density residential neighborhood. It also notes that other properties that would be served by an extension of 54th Avenue “have limited development potential due to large areas impacted by wetlands and buffers.”
Among other issues to be discussed at the Wednesday meeting, MainVue proposes to scrap a public sewer pump station proposed in Gig Holding Company’s development applications, and instead use a “low pressure system (LPS)” sewer connection to serve the 20 new houses. That alternative would save on long-term maintenance costs, it argues.
In addition, a “public pump station in this plat will have limited value to the city due to the proximity to the city boundary and [urban growth area], as well as the many critical area constraints on undeveloped properties north and west,” MainVue’s narrative states.
Stormwater runoff
To manage stormwater, MainVue says it would introduce a technique called “sheet flow dispersion” to route runoff into the surrounding landscape. It wants to know whether the city will accept the proposed dispersion flow path through critical wetland buffer areas, and if it will make an exception to existing standards by allowing these buffers to count toward the required dispersion area.
On Mainvue’s wish list from the city are road variances, including allowing its road and cul-de-sac to extend beyond 500 feet in length; installing fewer sidewalks than would otherwise be required; and accepting a narrower entrance to the new subdivision at Rosedale Street than would normally be required.
MainVue also wants to reduce the required vegetation buffer between its property and the Gig Harbor High School campus to 25 feet, from the required 40 feet. The city’s Design Review Board declined to grant the same request from Gig Holding Company, and Peninsula School District has opposed such a variance.
The proposed development is directly adjacent to Gig Harbor High School. Photo by Vince Dice
MainVue active in area
Unlike Gig Holding Company, which declined to comment on its plans or provide basic company information, MainVue Homes is known in Gig Harbor. It became owner and developer of The Reserve, a 14-house project on Peacock Hill Avenue, in 2024 after buying that project as a work-in-progress from RM Homes. It also recently broke ground on Harbor Run, a development of 16 houses, up the hill from The Reserve in unincorporated Pierce County.
MainVue Homes also sold 66 houses in the Harbor Hill development on Peacock Hill from 2018 through early 2020, Normandin said. “Our homes were very well received in Gig Harbor and we have been looking for land opportunities since then.”
She said that MainVue Homes is jointly owned by the large Australian homebuilder Henley Properties Group and Japan’s Sumitomo Forestry.