One means one.

With the city council poised to approve the Langley Passage project this week, the lawyer for the city of Langley has tacitly acknowledged the council made a mistake when it allowed more than one environmental appeal of the controversial housing project.

The 20-home project on the city’s eastern end has been in legal limbo since November, when the council unanimously shot down the development and sided with critics who said city staff had been “clearly erroneous” when they said the new subdivision could be built without hurting the environment or endangering the crumbling bluff in Langley’s Edgecliff neighborhood.

The rejection of the city’s environmental review — which was coupled with the knockdown of the preliminary plan for the housing project — prompted a strongly worded letter from Doug Kelly, the lawyer for the developers of Langley Passage. Kelly warned city officials that they would find themselves on the losing end of a lawsuit because the city had not followed its own rules for environmental challenges after it allowed opponents of Langley Passage, the Whidbey Environmental Action Network and a group of neighbors and others called the Langley Critical Area Alliance, to file appeal after appeal against the project.

The rub? The Langley Municipal Code, the rule book that dictates the operations of city hall, says only one appeal is allowed.

Langley’s legal counsel, however, has danced around the issue since Kelly sent his letter on Nov. 12.

Carol Morris, the outside attorney brought in to handle the Langley Passage review for the city, has declined to comment to the press on the appeals. But in a 50-page “final decision” that sets out the legal reasons for approving the new subdivision, Morris acknowledged that the Langley Municipal Code allows “only one administrative appeal.”

Her “conclusions of law,” set out in the “final decision” document the council will use as the foundation for this week’s vote on Langley Passage, notes that the decision made by the city’s Planning Advisory Board on the environmental appeals — made on Aug. 10, 2010 — was final.

The point is pivotal. The city council nixed Langley Passage primarily due to environmental issues: worries that storm-water runoff from the new development would weaken the unstable bluff along Edgecliff Drive, where opponents of the project own homes; and concerns that a new waterline would hurt a wetland on the Langley Passage property.

The “final decision” document also eviscerates the Planning Advisory Board’s rejection of the preliminary plat for Langley Passage. A preliminary plat is a draft plan that sets out the location of homes, streets, sidewalks and other components of a new subdivision.

The PAB rejected the preliminary plan for Langley Passage last year. At the time, board members nixed the project because of community opposition to the development, and they also said too many unsold homes were on the market in Langley.

The “final decision” states the PAB’s reasons for rejection were “insufficient.”

“Therefore, the city council reverses the PAB’s recommendation,” the decision states.

The “final decision” document presented to the council this week does not include any reasons why the development should be rejected.

Langley Passage has been in the permit pipeline for nearly five years, and the proposal for a new neighborhood of single-family homes was submitted after Langley’s first-ever moratorium against new subdivisions was lifted in February 2006.

The developers of the project, Whidbey Neighborhood Partners, have said the development plan would leave almost half of the 8.52-acre site as undeveloped open space, and have also noted that city regulations would allow up to 30 homes on the property between Edgecliff Drive and Sandy Point Road.

The developers agreed to install rain gardens at every home site — to help handle stormwater runoff that some in the neighborhood say will further endanger the crumbling bluff along Saratoga Passage — and along the private road leading into the new neighborhood. The developers also promised to pay for improvements to the drainage system along Edgecliff Drive, set aside two lots to a nonprofit organization that would provide affordable housing, and remove just six trees on the forested property when it is prepped for development.

Opposition to the project has been focused on two major issues: The city’s insistence that the developer include a new water main that would provide a critical loop in the city’s water system, and potential impacts to the bluff along Edgecliff Drive.

Concern over the water line has centered on its proposed location, which would punch through a buffer that protects a wetland on the Langley Passage property.

The possible impacts to the wetland, though, appear to have been resolved in recent weeks. Whidbey Neighborhood Partners has proposed installing the water line within a 15-foot-wide easement on a neighboring parcel just east of the Langley Passage property.

The developers have also suggested running the sewer line for the project on the neighboring property, as well.

That land, owned by Sieb Jurriaans, has been ground zero in an ongoing neighbor dispute prompted by some residents in the neighborhood who have been critical of landscaping activities on the property. Opponents of Langley Passage have said that property was once a wetland, and any damage to the area should have been restored.

City officials have said that the driveway on the Jurriaans property where the new utility lines would be placed was constructed before the city adopted its critical areas regulations. And based on a consultant’s report prepared by wetlands experts, city staff issued a decision last year that said that no other wetlands are near the location of the proposed utility easement.

The revised utility plan submitted by Whidbey Neighborhood Partners passed an environmental review and was approved by city staff on March 9.

Opponents began gearing up last week to fight the change in plans.

Steve Erickson of WEAN submitted the second of two information requests to the city on March 28, asking for any enforcement orders or other documents related to the Jurriaans property.

In an e-mail to the council on the same day, Erickson asked that the council hearing this week on Langley Passage be pushed back until WEAN has time to obtain and review the records.

Erickson also asked for the chance to cross examine Bob Snyder, the city building official who gave the project’s change in plans a green light on environmental issues.

If WEAN wasn’t given a chance to question Snyder, Erickson added, it would violate their rights and the city could find itself in court.

“I am sorry to have to use such a curt tone, but wish the city to fully realize that if appellants’ rights continue to be prejudiced as they have been since Nov. 1, we will have no recourse but to seek judicial redress,” Erickson wrote.

WEAN, and the Whidbey Critical Area Alliance, have repeatedly complained that the developers have contacted city officials outside the scheduled hearings in the case.

Members of WEAN and the alliance, however, have also engaged in such ex parte contact since the initial council vote against Langley Passage on Nov. 1, according to records obtained from the city.

At this week’s continuation of the Langley Passage hearing, the city council is expected to decide if it will disregard information that the developers have provided on their new plans; WEAN has asked that evidence in the hearing be tossed.

In the “final decision” document, city staff has recommended the rejection of WEAN’s request, adding that comments provided by the developer about the project are not new, but cover issues raised by city officials earlier in the process.

And on the other major concern from opponents, that stormwater runoff from the project will weaken the bluff, city staff is continuing to stress that multiple scientific experts have studied the issue and said the project will not hurt the bluff along Edgecliff.

The bluff is roughly the length of two football fields away from the nearest proposed home on Langley Passage, according to the developers.

A large wetland sits between the Langley Passage homes and Edgecliff Drive, and scientists have said any water that rushes off roofs and driveways in the housing development will seep into the ground and then “daylight” in the wetland and run into an adjacent ditch before it hits the bluff.

Langley officials also point out that the much-criticized designs for the housing project — where rain gardens can collect stormwater so it can soak into the ground, and the other “low impact development” techniques have been used — were required by the city’s own development regulations.

The “final decision” document isn’t one-sided in favor of the development, however.

It says that if the Langley Passage developers were concerned about the process used to handle the appeals to the project, those concerns should have been raised earlier — and not after the council voted to reject the project.

The document repeatedly recalls the developer’s warning of a potential lawsuit, and mentions the threat 10 times, while it only mentions a similar threat by WEAN once.

The city council was scheduled to resume the Langley Passage hearing Tuesday afternoon, after the Record went to press.