Building nightmare in Eastern Washington (Benton County). City planners won't grant permit due to shrub steppe
We purchased a 20 acres lot in Richland, Washington Nov 25 hoping to build on 5 acres of it. Lot is surrounding by vineyards owned by State of Washington. We submitted for our permit last December and city developers saw one tree on the property and said they wanted us to hire a wildlife biologist to see if the endangered ferruginous hawk lives there.
$10.5K later, our wildlife biologist met with City's biologist on site and our biologist didn't find any signs of ferruginous hawks. Their biologist started to zero in on the shrub steppe and said we had to get our biologist to recommend how much damage our home will destroy and to determine the ratio of replacement.
After four months of going back and forth, our biologist recommended the replacement ratio for the shrub stepped of 1:1 meaning and only one ace of the five our home sits on will need to be replaced. He said the rest of the property is composed of mostly cheek grass and not quality shrub steppe.
Richland's city planner disagrees and wants a 5:1 ratio for the shrub steppe and a 3:1 replacement ratio for the ferruginous hawk AND they want us to give or donate about 10 acres of our property to them for conservation purposes.
I am just trying to build a home for my family and I feel completely taken advantage of. I have no rights as a landowner and they can just do whatever they want and throw out arbitrary ratios because they feel like it?
This feels so wrong on so many levels. Why put me through all the work of paying $10.5K to get a biologist's recommendations if they are not willing to follow it?
In addition, they have tagged my lot as a critical area for shrub steppe and I can't even sell if I wanted to.
I saw that there's a WA house bill 2316 being pushed through the legislature right now for this exact problem of abuse and forcing residents who are trying to build to jump through all kinds of torture and not grant them their permits in the end. However, I don't have time to wait for the bill to be approved in 2 years. I just need my permit.
I don't know what to do as I am so discouraged and disappointed.
Any help would be great if anyone knows what I can do.