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A spokesman for some developers in Corvallis claims they were just mowing their property. City officials, however, say they may have mowed too much without the proper permit.

The growing controversy has stopped work on more than 200 acres of land where developers would like to build houses over the next 20 years.

Crews for GPA1 LLC were ordered by city code inspectors to stop cutting plants on the property last month. The 211 acres in the Timberhill area north of the Northwest Kings Boulevard and Walnut Boulevard intersection has been sitting idle for the past four weeks.

Dale Kern, a broker with Commercial Associates and spokesman for GPA1, said the developers were not clearing the land for construction. They were simply trimming massive growths of Scotch broom, blackberries and other overgrown vegetation so that surveyors and wetlands consultants could evaluate the property, he said.

“The issue is that they were working without a permit,” Corvallis Community Development Director Dan Carlson said. “It is an issue that’s in the process of being worked through, but basically, when you are disturbing more than 2,000 square feet of ground, you need an erosion control permit.

“They were definitely disturbing ground, and more than 2,000 square feet.”

Kern said developers acted without a permit because they didn’t realize they needed one. They were managing overgrown vegetation on their property, he said. It would be akin to homeowners stopping to think that they might need a permit before mowing their lawns, he added.

“It’s the landowners’ contention that permits are not required just to mow your property,” Kern said. “The owners, as I understand it, had a botanist and a forester come in and do a complete study of the area. They just followed the advice of those professionals.”

Carlson said city officials responded after receiving two separate complaints from local residents who claimed that developers were ripping up the environment in an area that has protected vegetation, riparian corridors and wetlands.

One of the complaints came from Stacey Dean, a local environmental activist. Dean did not return phone calls, but his wife and fellow activist, Pamela, wrote an opinion piece on the controversy for the Corvallis Gazette-Times.

“Crews were ripping out small trees and brush, scraping away ground vegetation (regardless of whether it was noxious) and bulldozing through established waterways,” she wrote. “This was occurring in a designated natural resource with field-verified wetland … protected stream corridors and a significant hillside designated for open-space conservation, with established connecting trails and multi-use paths leading to existing parks.”

Kern said that’s not true.

“Nothing was removed,” he said. “It was simply … a cutting, a mowing you might say, of these plants, these weeds. Nothing at all was removed from the site.”

It really all boils down to a paperwork question, Kern said.

“That’s the contentious issue,” he said. “Is the work that they were doing such that a permit was required or not?”

The complaints come with the territory in a college town like Corvallis, where people tend to be environmentally conscious, highly opinionated and extremely vocal, Kern added.

“The citizen involvement in Corvallis is pretty high when it comes to development and the environment,” he said. “There isn’t a development that happens here without contentious public feedback. Corvallis is known throughout the state for being that kind of community.”

Kern added that the city’s rules for land development add up to a stack of paper at least eight inches thick. However, he said, GPA1 has the advantage of a long track record of working with the community.

“The owners of the property are residents of this city and have gone out of their way in the past couple of decades to do everything correctly,” Kern said. “They actually take pride in doing the right thing. It was a surprise to them when the city put the stop work order on them when they felt they were in the regulatory boundaries for what they were doing.

“This property represents a huge percentage of all the buildable land inventory for Corvallis over the next 20 years,” he said. “Something is going to be built there eventually, but first you have to clear some of the brush and see what you’ve got.”

The Oregon Secretary of State’s website lists Charles Markley and Robert Wood as the principals of GPA 1. The website also states that the firm is headquartered in Salem.

Kern added that there is no hostility between developers and city officials; the conflict is being worked out.

“There are a multitude of options to get past this,” he said. “GPA1 is looking at what their options are and the validity of the claim that the city has made. It’s all intertwined with historical stuff with that site. It’s complex.”

Carlson said he is confident that the conflict eventually will be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.

“The developer is very cooperative,” Carlson said. “They’re working on putting a plan together. When something is approved, and I think it will eventually be approved, we just have to make sure it complies with our code.”