ARLINGTON — The state is buying nearly 1,000 acres of forest in Snohomish County as part of an effort to preserve timberland rather than see it turn into housing.
The Department of Natural Resources plans to spend $4.15 million to buy 985 acres from the Taylor family of Arlington.
The Taylors have owned the land since 1950 and operate it as Bear Creek Tree Farm, Lee Taylor said. Over the years, developers have approached the family hoping to buy the land to build houses to meet the growing county’s needs.
“Certainly we’ve been tempted, we’d be foolish not to have looked at that,” Taylor said. “There are other things in this world beside money. We’re second generation of managing that forest. My sisters and I share a commitment to those kinds of issues.”
The family worked for several years to find a way to keep the forest in timber production, Taylor said. The pending purchase by the state fulfills that goal, he said.
Taylor’s parents, Del and Mae Taylor, bought the land with a partner and later passed it on to their children, Lee and his sisters Nancy Taylor Mason and Mary Ellen Hogle.
The family’s land bridges hundreds of acres of state-owned forest land near Jim Creek.
“This pulls together several parcels of trust land and is a beautiful buy for the trust,” said Jane Chavey, spokeswoman for the Department of Natural Resources.
Once the state takes ownership of the property, it joins the Common School Trust — a collection of properties including timberland that funnel millions of dollars to school construction projects across the state.
“Not only does it create money for the trust in the long term, it prevents these lands from being converted.” Chavey said.
When the state signs the paperwork, it will be the second purchase under a $70 million effort intended to head off sprawling development on rural timber properties. The Legislature approved the program last year.
The state received a checkerboard of trust land at statehood in 1889, Chavey said. Since 1957, agency officials began better consolidating the land while still fulfilling endangered species habitat requirements and producing construction money for kindergarten through high school projects, Chavey said.
The property has some beautiful views, said Hardy Davidson, the Taylors’ real estate agent. “It could be a great development, frankly, but the owners have not gone in that direction,” Davidson said. That speaks volumes.
The land could fetch three or four times as much money if it was developed as rural housing, where houses are clustered together and open space is preserved, Taylor said.
The state’s purchase locks up land that could otherwise have been developed for housing, but that won’t create a pinch on homebuyers elsewhere, said Mike Pattison of the Master Builders of King and Snohomish Counties.
Two years ago, it would have affected the industry, Pattison said.
“Today, not so much,” he said. “We’ve seen a big slowdown in the purchase of land. Today, it’s not going to make a blip on the map.”
When the housing industry roars back to life in a few years, “we’ll probably be wishing that land was available,” Pattison said.
Reporter Jeff Switzer: 425-339-3452 or jswitzer@heraldnet.com.
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