The developer of the Point Roberts Beach Club is taking the local water district to court as part of their continuing efforts to get the district to refund connection fees they paid prior to losing their property to foreclosure.

In a complaint filed in Superior Court on March 16, Lily Point LLC alleges that the district’s refusal to issue them a refund is “arbitrary and capricious” and violates the agreement between Stanton Northwest, the original developer of the project, and the water district.

Under the agreement, Stanton paid $148,600 for 26 water connections, enough to move their development forward. At the time there was a moratorium on issuing new water connections and limited connections were available through a random allocation process. The developer was given the option to pay in full for a set number of connections to fund projected water system improvements.

Lily Point LLC lawyers argue that the water connections were not assigned to any specific property but to the project itself. District legal counsel has maintained the connections were for the eastern parcel proposed for initial development that Lily Point LLC no longer owns.

Lily Point LLC, which has since applied to Whatcom County for a scaled back development permit on land they still hold
contracts to develop, argues that the district has issued refunds in the past and that by refusing to do so in this case “has unjustly enriched itself at the expense and to the detriment” of the developer, whom they claim “has suffered and continues to suffer irreparable harm” due to district actions.

They are asking that the court compel the district to refund the connection fees and pay for legal costs.

 

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