Dispute over asphalt strip could stall school renovation plan

After twice being postponed, renovation of Hamilton International Middle School finally is scheduled to begin next year.

But a dispute over 0.2 acre of cracked-asphalt basketball courts between the school and Wallingford Playfield could threaten the project again.

A group of neighbors opposes the district's plans because they require Seattle Parks and Recreation to give up the 27-foot-wide strip of property. The land is functionally part of the school's play yard already, but it belongs to the parks department: When the city closed a street in 1970, it split the right of way, leaving half to the district, half to the parks department. All of it is on the school's side of a chain-link fence.

Now, as part of the Hamilton renovation, the school district wants to build a gym and a city-required parking garage in the space — bringing the building to the edge of the park. That worries neighbors, who have worked for eight years to improve and maintain the playfield.

"They're going ahead with this design and they don't have the property," said Phil Czosnyka, one of the neighbors. "It really seems like the cart before the horse."

Czosnyka and other critics say they'd like to see the district return to a previous plan to move Hamilton off its small site and into the nearby Lincoln building, which is much bigger. But the district says it needs to save Lincoln, a former high school now being used as an interim site during other school-renovation projects, in case secondary-school enrollment grows in the future, said Eleanor Trainor, a community liaison for capital projects at the school district.

Hamilton parents worry the dispute could derail the project a third time. For more than a decade, the district has planned to renovate the school — now 80 years old — but higher-priority projects have bumped it off the list twice.

"I don't think that anybody wants to see it go down over 27 feet of land," said Sharon Rodgers, a parent with a seventh-grader at the school.

But she said she isn't sure the district has respected the community's investment in the park, especially a meandering trail directly adjacent to the proposed project. That area, called "sunken gardens," would almost certainly be affected by school construction.

Neighbors also oppose district plans to dig up a portion of the park's ballfields to put in a geothermal heating system for the new school. The energy-efficient system would save the district $55,000 a year over what it spends now, Trainor said, but the ballfields would be out of use for at least eight months during construction, after which the district would resod and regrade the field.

Opponents say that would be a waste of money, since the city paid about $500,000 to build the ballfields eight years ago.

A city ordinance says the parks department can't give up land unless there is no viable alternative and requires the land be replaced with parkland in the same community. In addition, parks spokeswoman Dewey Potter said, the department likely will ask for compensation if the district digs up the ballfields.

The Seattle Parks Commission will meet Thursday to make a recommendation to the parks superintendent, who will then make a recommendation to the City Council.

Still, Trainor said she is confident about the project.

"It's far from a done deal," she said, "but most people see the tremendous benefit to the children and the community."

Emily Heffter: 206-464-8246 or eheffter@seattletimes.com