Everett, Wash.
Published: Sunday, June 15, 2008

Lake Stevens and Snohomish salivating over open land

The cities both have eyes for a rural area, if the county decides it shouldn't stay rural.

By Jeff Switzer, Bill Sheets and Yoshiaki Nohara
Herald Writer

 Before Bellevue's downtown was packed with people and high-rises, it was farms and fields -- just like the pastoral area between Lake Stevens and Snohomish.

"The only difference between Bellevue and Lake Stevens is that Bellevue has a floating bridge and we have a trestle," Lake Stevens Mayor Vern Little said. "Now is the perfect opportunity to look long term and look at east county."

The next ring of booming growth outside of Everett could find a foothold on more than 1,100 acres of rural land between Lake Stevens and Snohomish.

The Snohomish County Council is writing the latest chapter in the county's perennial debate over growth. The council is considering whether to allow the rural area between the two cities to be transformed by urban housing and job centers.

Or politicians might hold the line to keep it green and open, at least for a few more decades.

"The question is: Do we want to fill in the middle or keep some green separation between the communities?" said County Council Chairman Dave Somers, who represents the area.

Council debate picks up Monday with review of the competing proposals from Lake Stevens and Snohomish. Both cities want to control some or all of the area and a lucrative commercial project proposed by a developer. The winner will have a prize to add to the city's tax base.

Residents and environmentalists argue the bids should be taken off the table because there's room enough for population growth without consuming more rural land. A county staff analysis agrees.

The council has final say.

City vs. country

The debate focuses on the line in Snohomish County that divides city living from the country, urban housing from open pastures.

Politicians have regularly erased and redrawn the line since it debuted in 1995, sometimes opening up hundreds of acres of rural land for housing construction and new business centers.

Each year since 1995, the County Council has thrown open the door to moving the urban growth line farther afield. In the past, the council has voted to add dozens of acres here and there, boosting development by up to a dozen homes per acre instead of just one or two homes for every 5 acres.

This year is different.

Applications to urbanize another 2,000 acres are on the table. That's nearly as many acres as the council urbanized in 2005 to make room for 277,000 more people expected to need housing over the next two decades.

A new group of Democrats on the County Council say they have a tighter grip than ever on the reins of growth.

"Continuing to expand is continuing to encourage sprawl," County Councilman Mike Cooper said. The county has enough urban land for population growth "without expanding the urban growth area anymore."

The urban growth boundaries "are much more solid than they have been in the past," Somers said. "Urban growth expansions will have a very tough time."

Even so, the proposals aren't dead on arrival. The council is torn, none more so than Somers, who identifies closely with both cities, and with environmentalists and slow-growth activists.

"We all are struggling with whether those two proposals should go forward," Somers said. "It's a tough situation having two cities within my district in competition for an area."

Two towns, two visions

The ball started rolling in 2006 when developer Mike Reid proposed a commercial center on 372 acres on the northwest corner of the interchange of U.S. 2 and Highway 9.

The land should be part of Snohomish, Reid said.

Lake Stevens officials started to worry. Losing that land to Snohomish threatened to unravel Lake Steven's plans to annex thousands of acres down to U.S. 2.

It would be the second time in recent years Lake Stevens could lose out on commercial land to another city -- the other time was when 400 acres of Whiskey Ridge west of Highway 9 went to Marysville in 2005.

To prevent it from happening again, Lake Stevens filed a proposal that challenges Snohomish's effort to claim the land. The city also sweetened the deal by asking the county for permission to protect farmland elsewhere in the county.

Snohomish countered that strategy by teaming up with Reid to get things moving.

Now Lake Stevens is calling for a time-out.

"The area should be comprehensively planned for the future of the two cities and the county," said Little, the Lake Stevens mayor. "We have one chance to get it right. If it goes wrong, it'll be wrong forever."

Lake Stevens also is threatening to sue if the county chooses to give the land to Snohomish.

Snohomish and Lake Stevens both say they need the commercial property for jobs and tax revenue. Snohomish calculates that expenses will exceed revenues by 2019, Snohomish Mayor Randy Hamlin said. Commercial development will generate sales taxes to support the demand for services caused by rapid growth.

"It's for a long-term financial health of the community," Hamlin said.

The area Lake Stevens already plans to annex promises to put the budget $6 million in the hole after 10 years, Lake Stevens city administrator Jan Berg said.

Land could stay undeveloped

A majority of residents from the area prefer to join Snohomish over Lake Stevens, according to surveys and forums by both cities.

Still, there are growing signs the County Council might not reopen the door to more urban development.

Earlier this month, the council rejected 57 acres that would have spilled growth across the urban growth line into rural areas.

The line shifted in just two places: to let a Lake Stevens school legally connect to sewers and to correct the status of a log-sorting yard on the Everett waterfront.

Instead, the council approved a batch of changes to allow more neighborhood businesses in urban areas where housing previously was planned.

In April, the council was reluctant to even study the Lake Stevens and Snohomish proposals even though it wouldn't cost the county any money.

Somers goes back and forth on whether to open up the rural area to growth or preserve a swath of land that will keep the two cities separate and distinct.

"Why spend money if we may be saying no here shortly?" Somers said. "The other side of me says that's the next ring for growth."

But the kind of sprawl that merges cities -- as seen in Los Angeles --isn't what he wants to see, Somers said.

The county's process is flawed to accept such a huge list of changes each year, County Councilman Brian Sullivan said. King County considers moving its urban growth boundary only every four years, he said.

"I think the line's pretty solid," Sullivan said. He said he wants changes that follow growth management's long range goals of containing growth instead of piecemeal decisions.

"The tail's been wagging this dog for a long time," Sullivan said. "There are 16,000 lots available in Snohomish County. Why are we looking at urban growth expansions?"

All's quiet for now

Mike Pattison said no one in his group, the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties, is clamoring to move the urban-rural line. Development in the whole region is taking a time-out because of the economy, he said.

That said, he wouldn't be surprised if the County Council redrew the urban-rural line to help a city.

"A development like that is a boon for any city and worth fighting for," Pattison said. "If an expansion makes sense for the local community and it's done right, I think they're earnest enough to consider it."

The region's geography is forcing the two cities to grow toward one another.

Both cities are hemmed in by flood plains to the west. Snohomish also is up against the Pilchuck and Snohomish rivers to the south and east. Likewise, Lake Stevens has wetlands to the north.

Environmentalists and some residents of the area are pushing the County Council to keep the area rural.

David Clay, 54, loves raising his two sons in the country north of Snohomish.

"It's peaceful," he said. "It's quiet." Only a few dozen houses now exist in about 300 acres, Clay said. He and his neighbors don't want to be in a city whether it's Snohomish or Lake Stevens.

"Not everything in this county needs to be business," said Clay, a resident for 15 years.

More houses would add cars on congested roads such as U.S. 2 and Highway 9, Clay said. Growth should be directed elsewhere.

"There's plenty room in the current urban growth area" of Snohomish to accommodate future growth, he said.

Joanne Martina, 73, said she has lived on her property on Cavalero Hill since she was 4 -- first while she was growing up and later in another house with her husband.

They've had offers from a developer who wanted to build 12 houses on their land, she said. But she and her husband don't want to move and neither do most of their neighbors, Martina said.

Government officials have promised improved roads, but "we like our roads because nobody drives fast on them," Martina said. House would have to be knocked down in order to widen roads, she said.

"People used to build their houses close to the road and keep the back for their cow," Martina explained.

"This is an old community," said Carol McDonald, who also lives on Cavalero Hill. She said that in some cases six or seven generations of families have lived on the same land.

"This is not just lines on a map or land to be exploited," McDonald said. "These are people's lives."

Reporter Jeff Switzer: 425-339-3452 or jswitzer@heraldnet.com.
© 2009The Daily Herald Co., Everett, WA