King County considers changes to urban boundaries

When tiny Snoqualmie Valley Hospital was looking for a larger and more accessible location, it settled on a premier spot: the Interstate 90-Highway 18 interchange, right at the entrance to the Snoqualmie Ridge planned community.

Snoqualmie city officials were delighted.

There was just one problem.

The 73-acre property, just outside the city, was on the wrong side of King County's nearly sacred urban-growth boundary, and zoned for rural uses only.

After some neighbors and environmentalists objected, County Executive Ron Sims' planners suggested a solution the council has used before: The hospital could build there if it permanently protected 4 acres of open space for every acre it built on.

For the past year, debate has raged over the hospital's request to move the growth-boundary line that separates urban from rural in fast-growing King County.

The Metropolitan King County Council will vote Monday on the hospital proposal, one of a number of requests from property owners that the urban-growth-boundary line be moved to allow denser development.

Those requests are being considered as part of a once-in-every-four-years update of the county's blueprint for growth, the comprehensive plan. The urban-boundary line is at the heart of the plan.

Some of the proposed boundary adjustments have stirred deep controversy.

But compared to the rural revolt four years ago against changes in the county's critical-areas ordinance and two companion laws, this year's review of the comprehensive plan has largely been a polite process.

County Councilmember Larry Phillips calls this year's update "basically cleanup — there's nothing that's earthshaking in terms of new policy direction." But even without groundbreaking policies, people have found plenty to argue about.

Critics of Snoqualmie Valley Hospital's plans worried about the scale of development because the hospital's vision for the land includes classroom space for Bellevue Community College, a hotel, assisted-living center and small shops on its campus.

Others were eager to see those kinds of uses come to Snoqualmie. A wide, tree-covered buffer would hide the development from I-90, winning support from the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust.

When the hospital balked at the idea of having to go out on the market and buy development rights from neighboring landowners, it negotiated a deal with county planners. The hospital could pay the county nearly $1 million, and the county would then buy the development rights.

Some environmentalists have blasted the negotiated payment as too small, while hospital administrator Rodger McCollum fretted the deal might be too costly.

"The developable portion of the land got whittled down to such a small amount that it doesn't look like it's going to make financial sense for the taxpayers that support the [hospital] district," McCollum said Thursday.

He said the hospital still hopes to make the deal work. But that has left some County Council members worrying that the hospital might walk away from the land, possibly passing it on to strip-mall developers or other commercial users.

On the eve of the council's vote, the hospital's prospects look iffy. "Without something concrete," Gossett said of the hospital proposal, "that's not going to fly, I don't think. ... We are supposed to have reasons for changing the urban-growth boundary" — in this case, a hospital.

Among the other requests before the County Council, Duvall residents Ray and Tove Burhen want 40 acres of their land designated urban so they can donate it to their hometown for a "heritage park" and a smaller commercial development that would generate income to maintain the park and agricultural-history exhibits.

The Sims administration initially opposed the park proposal as an unnecessary incursion into the rural area, but under prodding from County Councilmember Kathy Lambert and others, negotiated with Duvall and the Burhens. Mayor Will Ibershof said Thursday a deal seems near.

"The Burhens are being extremely generous to the city of Duvall, because park space is a huge premium to us. We can't buy park space for active and passive park space in Duvall without spending millions of dollars" — money Ibershof said the city doesn't have.

And in Maple Valley, King County and city officials agreed last week to jointly plan future development on a 156-acre site — the so-called "Donut Hole" the county owns in the center of the city. YarrowBay Group is buying the property from the county for $51 million.

With that planning agreement in hand, the County Council is now expected to change the site designation from rural to urban, to be developed for housing and possibly other uses.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com