Protesting homeless group removed from Burien apartment to be razed

Nine people protesting the Port of Seattle's plans to demolish an affordable housing apartment complex in Burien were arrested this morning after they took over an empty unit and wouldn't leave, the King County Sheriff's office said.

They were booked into the Regional Justice Center for trespassing, according to the sheriff's office.

The protest at Lora Lake Apartments was spearheaded by homeless-advocacy group SHARE/WHEEL. It ended at about 8:30 a.m. today when deputies forced their way into the vacant apartment that 12 protestors had take taken over, the sheriff's office said. Two people climbed over a balcony, jumped to the ground, and walked off, and one woman was allowed to leave, according to the office.

The Port has turned down a King County offer to buy the apartments, which have become a political symbol for ending homelessness.

Earlier this week, the county offered the Port $18 million for the property, which includes 162 affordable apartments. On Wednesday, the Port rejected the offer, saying the city of Burien, which controls the land-use laws, does not want people living near the third runway at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

"These are market-rate apartments that are located 900 feet from the center line of a major runway," said Linda Strout, the Port's deputy chief executive. "We respect Burien's decision, and we agree with that decision that that's not a suitable place for residential housing to be located."

The Port says it has been planning to tear down the apartments — run by the King County Housing Authority — since 1998 because part of the complex lies in the buffer zone of the new runway. The 162 units in question, however, are not in the buffer zone.

The city of Burien wants to put a big-box store on the site, and the Port is hoping for a cargo warehouse.

King County Executive Ron Sims' office said Wednesday it was not ready to comment on the Port's decision.

In June, several officials called on Burien and the Port to back off their plans to tear down the apartments, including Sims, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and Gov. Christine Gregoire. They said the Lora Lake Apartments, many of which were occupied by tenants using federal low-income-housing vouchers, kept working-class people from falling into homelessness. The last residents moved out in June.

Sims, who is co-chairman of the Committee to End Homelessness in King County, threatened last month that if Burien did not change course, he would pull county funding out of a multimillion-dollar park-and-ride, retail and housing complex in downtown Burien, a key piece of the city's redevelopment plan.

Nickels, who is also a member of the homelessness committee, refused to sell city-owned land that juts into the property, reducing the lot's value to a developer.

Negotiations between the county and Burien to keep it a residential area failed. This week, the county offered $18 million, $11 million more than what the Port could earn by redeveloping the site as a warehouse, Sims said in an offer letter.

Seattle Times reporter Christina Siderius contributed to this report.

Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958 or schan@seattletimes.com