POULSBO — A condominium project proposed for a Poulsbo slope with a history of slides has been canceled by the city planning director. The site’s previous owner regained title to the property after the developer reportedly defaulted, and the property owner reportedly told the city she has no desire to redevelop the site.

Nevertheless, Harbor Lights Development LLC, a partnership of seven investors, is appealing the planning director’s action. The Hearing Examiner will consider the appeal beginning at 10 a.m. July 23 in City Hall.

Harbor Lights Development LLC bought 19041 and 19043 Front St. — currently the home of Bei Capelli, Olympic Photo Group and Mimi’s Nails — from Sophia Solario on Feb. 1, 2007 for $1.45 million, according to the Kitsap County Assessor’s online database. It submitted a development proposal to the city in 2008.

In 2011, Harbor Lights Development filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Western Washington, listing a debt to Solario of $600,000. Solario regained ownership of the properties four years later, on May 15.

Harbor Lights Development proposed demolishing the Olympic Photo Group/Mimi’s Nails building and relocating the adjacent Bei Capelli building, an old farmhouse that once was located where Martha & Mary is today.

Harbor Lights’ condominiums would consist of three stories above grade, with another level and parking below grade. Construction would extend partly down the slope. Mitchell Adams of Harbor Lights said in a May 2014 Herald story that the toe of the slope would be stabilized with a seawall.

The project came upon hurdles from the start. The project would alter the slope’s vegetation, and that would violate the Shoreline Management Act and the city’s own shoreline master program. And the project was proposed on a slope identified as prone to landslides. A peer review group of engineers and planners reported that measures in Harbor Lights’ geotechnical report were insufficient to mitigate slide risk.

Few dispute that the bluff on upper Front Street has a history of slope movement. A walk along the boardwalk is like a walk along a century-long timeline of local efforts to shore up the slope. The earliest retaining walls were made of logs. Later retaining walls were made of concrete.

The slope was the site of slides in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In October 1997, the city red-tagged a cafe and bookstore, owned by Solario and her late mother, Tyfilinata Asueaga-Solario, after Asueaga-Solario built a patio deck over a portion of the slope. Earlier that year, soil had sloughed away from beneath the building. Ultimately, slope stabilization was done there and next door, at the site of Bei Capelli. Asueaga-Solario was given the old farmhouse in exchange for moving it off of Martha & Mary’s property.

In 2002, a portion of the bluff sloughed off, forcing the city to close a neighboring cafe, the Poulsbohemian Coffeehouse. A retaining wall was installed at the toe of the slope and the slope replanted.

A message was left at Adams’ work number early July 9. Contact information for Solario could not be found.