A lawsuit filed by a group of four Burien residents and business owners to stop the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) and the City of Burien from moving ahead on their planned affordable housing project has been voluntarily dismissed.
All parties agreed last week to dismiss the lawsuit that aimed to stop DESC’s permanent affordable housing project that will get some 95 chronically homeless people off the street.
“Plaintiffs John White, Jose Luis Rangel Olivera, Lynette Storer, and David Burke (‘Plaintiffs’) and Defendants the City of Burien and the Downtown Emergency Service Center (‘Defendants’), by and through their respective undersigned attorneys, jointly move the Court for an order of dismissal without prejudice,” the court document dated Friday, April 28, 2022, says.
The 7-page complaint filed in King County Superior Court in December, 2021 sought an order prohibiting the city from including the permanent supportive housing project proposed to be built at 801 SW 150th Street in its Affordable Housing Demonstration Program, which provides flexibility in certain development regulations in exchange for affordable housing.
“There is much to say about our decision to drop the case, but let’s say one key factor was the DESC and the City of Burien successfully obtaining a signed Inter-Local-Agreement which requires the DESC to prioritize at least 30 beds to Burien homeless,” lead plaintiff White told The B-Town Blog. “That agreement was not required until the opening day of the DESC building. We were concerned the ILA was not going to happen and would not be enforced. It happened and now 30 beds indeed will be available, and our city has that in a written, signed, enforceable agreement.”
All parties agreed to dismiss the case without prejudice – meaning it or something like it could still be refiled at a later date.
Read our extensive previous coverage of the DESC issue here.
