When Stephanie Ross digs her hand into the slope above Halls Hill Road, she easily bores into a fine grit laid bare not by heavy winter rains, but by a few summer showers.

“You can’t grow grass here, let alone build or develop here,” she said, letting the sand run through her fingers. “When this hill fails, it’s going to fail on top of our community.”

The 4-foot-wide strip of exposed earth on city-owned land runs like a sandy chute though dry hillside grasses toward Seaborn Road, where Ross and dozens of other Blakely Harbor residents live.

At the slide’s source is a sinkhole big enough to swallow a kitchen table.

While the area suffered heavy flooding during last year’s wet winter, this latest not-so-subtle hint of erosion appeared just last month on an acre’s worth of hillside the city purchased to help ensure Halls Hill would hold still.

The city cut deep into the property’s steep ledge, creating a more gradual slope – but the geotechnical surgery has healed slowly after cost-cutting measures reduced the scope of the project.

The city’s Public Works Department was initially tasked with planting 54 Douglas fir trees and nearly 300 shrubs to help stabilize the exposed hillside. Instead, public works relied largely on grass plantings to hold the hill in place.

“The hill was replanted, but not according to permit,” said City Engineer Bob Earl. “Cost was an issue. We went back (to the city planning department) and said it was silly to plant that much in that small of a space. (Planning) agreed and so we hydroseeded the grasses in.”

Earl said the cutback, along with a greater number of plantings, likely would have been a wiser course of action for his department to have followed.

“A combination, in my view, would have been more appropriate,” he said.

Ross and members of Island Keepers, a new citizen-based environmental group (see related story this page), successfully lobbied the City Council last week to close Halls Hill Road until it is deemed safe for vehicle traffic. After a three-day public notice period, public works plans to have the road closed this week.

Ross said she’s grateful to the council for its unusually bold and quick response to her neighborhood’s concerns. But the city should do more, she said, including the implementation of the initial planting project.

“My number one wish would be that the city revegitate this slope,” she said. “Planting grass isn’t enough.”

Public works staff plans to reassess stabilization strategies for Halls Hill Road in the coming months, including new geotechnical assessments and possibly moving the road onto more stable ground deeper into the hillside.

“The road’s been stable for a century and we want to make sure it stays that way,” said Earl.

“We need to re-look at it, re-engineer it and make it generally safer for users and the community. And we’re doing that.”