The developer of a proposed hotel complex on Camano Island is now offering Island County land worth $750,000 if the county will approve its plans for a

40-room Best Western Hotel.

The offer comes after the county and the courts have rejected TR Camano Inc.’s plan to build two hotels on Camano Island.

The deal was one of six options presented to the county in an e-mail letter sent to county commissioners on Aug. 7 from TR Camano Inc.

David Platter and Robert Cole of TR Camano Inc. said the company would give the county two building pads worth $750,000 that the county can use for a new Bay View Park Cultural Center.

The project – to be financed and built by the county – would include a cultural center in one building and county office buildings in the other. The county could then lease out its existing buildings on Camano Island.

County commissioners reviewed the TR Camano offer in a closed-door executive session Wednesday. After the meeting, commissioners sent a letter to the developer saying they lack the authority to approve any of the options outlined by TR Camano.

Commissioner Bill Byrd said the commissioners are not in a position to negotiate with the developer, because the court rulings have sent the case back to the planning department.

“We really can’t talk about it,” Byrd said. “Anything he wants to do, we’re not able to do.”

Platter, president of TR Camano, said the company is now forced to resubmit the proposal to the planning department with the changes suggested by the Island County hearing examiner.

Overnight lodging is possible if the hotel is attached to a cultural center, but Platter said the county put a number of conditions on a potential cultural center that aren’t feasible.

“The biggest change is that they want us to build a cultural center twice as big as planned,” he said. “They want us to build a 40,000-square-foot cultural center for a 20,000-square-foot hotel.”

Platter said it’s not fair for the county to expect the company to build a multi-million public cultural center as a condition of approval for its hotel project.

“That’s a significant public gift,” he said.

The county presented the company with three pages of conditions on how the cultural center must be used, he added.

“It doesn’t say anywhere in the code that they can condition how a business is used or ran,” he said.

“The county believes they can condition us to death.”

The company is in the process to rework the proposal, Platter said.

In the e-mail offer sent earlier this week, Platter and Cole say the development “will be a welcome improvement for all Island County employees and residents of Camano Island.”

The developers say their proposal is “win win” and would go a long way to change the perception “that Camano is the step child of Whidbey Island and does not get equal representation in man power and facilities the public gets to use.”

The company’s other options, as stated in the letter, include an “if all else fails” alternative of annexing the eastern side of Camano Island into the city of Stanwood. The developers also noted they had received paperwork from the city of Stanwood to begin the petition process for an annexation.

Other options include:

• TR Camano Inc. developing two 6,000-square-foot cultural centers;

• Removing the hotel and cultural center from the proposal and building post-steel buildings that could be rented out for public use;

• Appealing the county’s rejection of its development plans to the state Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals;

• Amending the county’s “rural village zone” to allow overnight use.

TR Camano has not filed an application for building permits for its proposed development, which would include two restaurants and an office building on roughly 5 acres near Highway 532 and Good Road on Camano Island.

The developer also has not asked the county to change its rural village zoning to allow hotels within the zone, said Jeff Tate, assistant director of the county’s planning department.

Such a change would require an amendment to the county’s comprehensive plan, Tate said. The deadline for suggested changes to the plan was Feb. 1.

The proposed deal came on the heels of two losses in court by TR Camano, which wants to build two hotels on land zoned “rural village” on Camano Island. Hotels are not allowed in the rural village zone.

Earlier this month, the Washington Court of Appeals reversed a Skagit County Superior Court ruling and reinstated an Island County hearing examiner’s decision that shot down an application for a stand-alone hotel.

Overnight lodging is allowed in the rural village zone, when the lodging is part of a cultural center, however.

County officials said TR Camano repacked its development proposal, and claimed the hotels were part of a “cultural center” as a way to get past the hotel ban in the rural village zoning.

But Skagit County Superior Court Judge Susan Cook denied TR Camano’s appeal for its modified project application. That ruling came Aug. 2, a day after the Court of Appeals decision.

TR Camano has 30 days from Aug. 1 to ask the Court of Appeals to reconsider its ruling, or ask the state Supreme Court to take up the case.

Platter said if the reworked proposal won’t work out, the company has other options to use their property. TR Camano Inc. could use the land for construction of office, retail and storage buildings. But they still hope the hotel is approved at the location.

“It’s not over until it’s over,” Platter said.