Poulsbo Mayor Becky Erickson sent a powerful message when she pulled consideration of a Central Highland Homes’ development application from the City Council agenda on July 6, saying the developer hadn’t met conditions of approval in an earlier phase of development.

The message: Developers can expect to be held responsible for meeting city codes and ordinances before they gain city approval to proceed with their projects. In this case, city inspectors toured the second phase of the Summerset development off Viking Way and found a tripping hazard presented by a sprinkler head in the middle of a walking trail; and piles of sand, gravel and construction debris on sidewalks.

Mayor Erickson later said enforcement also pertains to landscaping. Developers can no longer post a bond to postpone completion of landscaping in public areas for up to 12 months. Now, all promised landscaping must be completed before the city will sign off on a project.

The results of past leniency abound. At the College Marketplace entrance, the developer didn’t complete landscaping as required, and invasive Scotch broom rules the site. A resident of Poulsbo Place said irrigation is unfinished on his block.

Regarding the July 6 council meeting, the developer said he was “ambushed” by the mayor’s decision – backed by a 5-0 City Council vote – to pull his application from the agenda. But Barry Berezowsky, director of planning and economic development, said he talked to the developer, apprising him of the problems and the fact he would have to recommend that the application be denied if it came before the council that night.

Berezowsky said he urged the developer to voluntarily remove the project from the agenda so that it could be brought up at a subsequent council meeting once the problems had been resolved. The developer refused, but the mayor postponed it anyway. Had the project been denied, Central Highland Homes would have had to begin the application process all over again, resulting in as much as a three-month delay.

The city treated the developer fairly. And overall, the mayor and council did the right thing.