The Bellevue City Council voted to deny the appeal of Ina Tateuchi to remove the helicopter landing on top of the Bellevue Place building at the council’s Sept. 17 meeting.

The helicopter landing area, also known as a helistop, had a conditional use permit (CUP) approved by the council in 2009. The helistop itself is located on top of the Bellevue Place building at 10500 NE 8th St., Bellevue.

That helistop has been the subject of a controversy between philanthropist Tateuchi and developer Kemper Freeman, who owns the building. Tateuchi alleges that the use granted by the CUP had been abandoned and the CUP was obtained by misrepresentation of fact.

Tateuchi submitted the application to revoke the CUP from Kemper Development Company (KDC) in February 2016. That application was denied a year later and Tateuchi appealed the denial. The appeal went through a hearing examiner process in March 2018. In April, the hearing examiner denied the appeal.

Now Tateuchui has appealed the hearing examiner’s decision to the Bellevue City Council. The council heard arguments from both paries as well as their own Development Services Department on July 6.

At the July 6 meeting, Tateuchi’s representative explained their case saying the helistop had not been used since 2015, which constitutes abandonment in city code. They also argued that the CUP was approved based on intentions to change flight policy after the CUP had been granted.

Bellevue’s assistant city attorney, representing the Development Services Department, said the city code provisions would not classify the Bellevue Place helistop as abandoned and that the stop itself is continually maintained.

A representative of KDC said emails regarding the misrepresentation claim obtained through discovery only contained a discussion of how the city’s code would affect their operations and did not misrepresent intentions.

At the Sept. 17 meeting, the city council issued their decision on the matter. Mayor John Chelminiak said that after review of the record and the July 6 meeting, the council would once again deny the appeal of the helistop.

“Based on the record made before the hearing examiner I believe the council will find that the appellants have failed to meet their burden to prove that the hearing examiner made a mistake by issuing a decision that was not supported by material and substantial evidence,” he said.

A motion was made to have the city attorney’s office draft an ordinance accepting the findings of facts and conclusions of law from the April 5 hearing examiner decision. The motion passed unanimously and will come back to the council in the near future.