Pacific Raceways president Jason Fiorito came to the King County Council Chambers Dec. 14 to present his case for an ordinance creating a special overlay district benefiting his track.
With that in hand, Fiorito said he could expand his 50-year-old family-owned racetrack facility east of Highway 18 between Auburn and Kent so it could meet professional motorsport sanctioning body requirements, and once again host significant, big-money-making racing events, as it did in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Opponents, however, most of them living within a one-to-two mile radius of the track, told members of the Transportation Environmental Committee that if Fiorito were allowed to expand as he intends, the result would be seven-day-a week, 24-hour-a-day racing, generating much more head-splitting noise, and putting many more cars on Highway 18 on racing days. They said it also would pollute salmon-bearing Soos Creek.
Opponents, who complained that the proposal was moving forward without public notification, said that the overlay district would grant Fiorito special rights no one else enjoys, such as being able to build on slopes.
Auburn-Black Diamond Road resident Leah Boehm, who has lived just south of the raceway for 10 years, spoke against the expansion.
“Recently, the owner has not been obeying the conditional use permit,” Boehm said. “At the Oct. 13 meeting (at Green River Community College) he told us he didn’t comply with the five-day requirement, and that’s a sign. You should know that people who live near the racetrack have an expectation for noise based on the conditional use permit, and that isn’t being enforced.”
Rick Bautista, principal legislative analyst for the King County Council, surprised the audience when he said that King County has “no legislative tool” to address a facility like Pacific Raceways, so it can grow without adversely affecting the surrounding communities.
The better tool, said Bautista, would be a new process called a “demonstration project” that could be used for other large projects.
“It would allow us to craft a review process that would involve the community and allow the Council to remain involved over time,” Bautista said. “Currently, the track operates under a conditional use permit, which allows few and limited opportunities to review it or consider a master plan. The demonstration project could lead to a special use permit chapter, including a requirement for a development agreement that acquires Council approval and the issuance of an annual compliance report.”
Committee chair Larry Phillips responded that the overlay district idea was no longer under consideration continued with the hearing anyway. The committee took no action.
Bautista said had received comments from the Muckleshoot Tribe that day suggesting a number of conditions regarding the potential impacts to Little Soos Creek.
Fiorito said Pacific Raceways, once a world-class racing facility and host to all the professional racing series in the world at the time, had deteriorated since its glory days in the 1960s and ’70s through a series of unfortunate leases to the point where “it is useable today,” but not as a professionally sanctioned one road course.
His plans call for a new road course, a shifter kart course, a motocross course, a 5/16-mile oval track and up to two drag strips. He wants retail and wholesale sales, automotive repair, service and storage, a fire station, a service station, a driving school, daycare, manufacturing, restaurants and concessions, and extraction of dirt, sand and gravel in conjunction with the construction of racing surfaces.
He acknowledged that Pacific Raceways creates traffic on Highway 18 because the east-and-westbound off-ramps use a single entrance into the raceway. He suggested these be separated, eliminating the backup that occurs on Highway 18. Acknowledging there is no noise mitigation for the community across Soos Creek on Auburn-Black Diamond Road he proposed some noise mitigation measures on the lower side of the track and adding some buildings between the lowered racing surface and the community and earthen berms.
“It provides wonderfully efficient noise mitigation between the racing surface and the surrounding area,” Fiorito said, his last words drowned out by a rising tide of derisive laughter from opponents.
Greg Wingard, president of the Middle Green River Coalition and a board member of the Green River-Duwamish Watershed Alliance, spoke first.
“A vast majority of the environmental conservation community for this area that is stewardshipping Green River and its associated tributaries is very much opposed to this ordinance, and asks that it be killed in committee.”
Ruth Hanson who has lived about a mile away from the track since 1960, said Fiorito is ignoring restrictions on racing days and times to the detriment of old and young people especially.
“Now they can go any time they want, you can hear them all the time, and it’s absolutely ridiculous that you people would allow this and not even let the people know what’s going on. We were not informed,” Hanson said.
“I oppose all versions of this ordinance that allow Pacific Raceway expansion,” Boehm said. “The conditional use permit is required, and this noise problem is being ignored. I’m not saying close down the racetrack, I’m saying don’t allow it to expand. Expansion is not appropriate for the environment in that place.”
