Lakes Stevens, Snohomish still sparring over land

Published 10:13 pm Friday, January 30, 2009

The fight over an 1,100-acre chunk of rural land north of U.S. 2 continues after a mediator failed to broker a resolution between Snohomish and Lake Stevens.

After three months of negotiations, a mediator Friday told officials from both cities there’s no agreement on how to share the land.

Neither city was able to prove to the mediator that it had more of a legitimate stake to the area than the other, said Lake Stevens Mayor Vern Little.

“I don’t think either city is going to walk away and not continue to pursue this,” said Snohomish city manager Larry Bauman.

The cities considered seven options, including divvying the land in various ways. Each city would like the right to add the area to its boundaries in the future.

The cities have haggled over the land since 2006. Both say they need the land for commercial developments that would supply jobs and tax revenue.

“It’s pretty obvious to all the parties that the intersection of Highways 2 and 9 is a rich economic area,” Bauman said. “In essence, that’s what the conflict is about.”

Snohomish wanted to consider sharing the property, but Lake Stevens rejected the compromise, Bauman said.

Lake Stevens officials said they came up with a different proposal for Snohomish to save money. That was for Snohomish to send all its sewage through Lake Stevens’ planned wastewater treatment plant. Lake Stevens officials said Snohomish rejected that proposal.

The impasse means the decision will likely be thrown back to the Snohomish County Council, Bauman said. It’s not clear what action the County Council will take, if any.

Lake Stevens is interested in taking a regional approach, rather than drawing a line that may not make sense, Little said.

“We just see that area as an area that needs to be comprehensively planned for everyone’s benefit, not just for a single city,” he said.

Still, according to Little, Lake Stevens needs 250 to 350 more acres of commercial land to be able to provide essential city services in the future, while Snohomish needs 45 to 65.

To not have access to the area would be “a big loss to Lake Stevens, based on the data we have,” Little said.

To concede any of the territory also would limit tax revenue for the city’s fire department in the future, something that already occurred a few years ago when Snohomish County awarded 400 acres on Whiskey Ridge to Marysville in 2005, Little said.

Lake Stevens City Councilman John Spencer said the proposals to split up the area were run past Lake Stevens City Council members and were unanimously rejected.

The debate focuses on the line that separates cities from rural land. The County Council has moved the line repeatedly since 1995, allowing denser development on patches of land all over the county.

In 2006 developer Mike Reid proposed developing 372 acres of rural land northwest of U.S. 2, and the city backed him up.

“It’s basically a developer-driven proposal in Snohomish,” Spencer said. “It’s nice he wants to spend money on it but it’s just not the best way to make this decision.”

Lake Stevens officials in turn filed a counter proposal to loop in a 1,100-acre chunk, including the commercial development.

Meanwhile, a new group of Democrats on the council began clamping down on growth. In June, the council rejected competing proposals from Lake Stevens and Snohomish for rural land.

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

A group of 28 families in the disputed area banded together and have written letters to both cities and the county that indicate they identify more with Snohomish, said Coby Dilling, a spokesman for the group, the Joywood Neighborhood Association.

Nobody moved to the area because they wanted to live in the city, Dilling said. But it’s clear to people in the association development is coming.

“We’d like to see a process that we have a say in,” Dilling said. “I don’t want to be in a position in five years when my daughter is starting first grade that Snohomish County has just built and built and built, and we’ve lost the opportunity to do it right.”

Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com.