“SUQUAMISH – Area residents have some questions about what Kitsap County’s role is in a proposed housing project near Angeline Avenue. A meeting has been scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Suquamish Congregational Church to answer those questions and address concerns. After receiving a number of calls and letters from residents of the area, I felt the County needed to provide more information about the limitations of our jurisdictional authority on this site, said Chris Endresen, Kitsap County Commissioner. Tribal chairman Bennie Armstrong and members of the Suquamish Tribe’s community development department presented the plan to residents at a meeting last month. The project, he said, would get tribal members out of sub-standard housing and into affordable homes. About 50 people are on a waiting list for housing, he said. The tribe intends to convert 14 acres from fee to trust land as part of a grant application to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the Indian Community Development Block Grant Program. The finished project includes 22 homes. The plan would take about six years to build out and include a detention pond and buffers. The proposed plan, however, was met with some frustration from Angeline residents who are concerned about the development of lands that the county zoned as rural residential, which means one home per five acres of land. The Angeline Project proposes a density of one home for each half-acre. Although the density proposed in the project is consistent with the density of existing surrounding development, it is inconsistent with the zoning of rural residential under the County’s Comprehensive Plan. After conversion to trust land, however, the county’s and state’s governance over that land ends. Some area residents are concerned about impacts to the neighborhood from the development. Among these concerns is the anticipated increase in traffic on Angeline Avenue. Tribal officials are also attempting to obtain an easement from Puget Sound Energy that would allow traffic to access the site through Suquamish Way. If the easement is not obtained, the housing project may generate an estimated 229 average daily trips and 24 peak hour trips just north of the Jones Road intersection, doubling the current traffic count of 281 average daily trips and 13 peak hour trips. In this scenario, the county has asked tribal officials to improve Angeline Avenue before the housing project is complete. Overall, the County reports that anticipated environmental impacts from the project appear to be adequately addressed in the Environmental Review Record, which was prepared for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a partial source of grant funding for the project. After a review of the plan, the county asked the tribe to provide a 20- to 50- foot landscape screen to buffer new and existing residential development and to pay impact fees to help defray the cost of schools, parks, and roads that will benefit the new neighborhood. Tribe officials told residents there would be another public hearing in the near future to discuss the project and the progress of gaining possible access from Suquamish Way. Tribal Center officials were not available for comment concerning Tuesday’s meeting. “