The Journal did a good job capturing viewpoints in this story, but I feel the mayor is way too pessimistic. We still have many unused tools to encourage redevelopment. Some of these are; flexible new zoning, waiving impact fees, fast-track building permits, reduced permit fees for projects that meet community goals, and free stock building plans. In fact, what we have been doing is just the opposite of encouraging free-market revitilization. Ironically, we’ve maintained a construction moratorium in this area during the last 14 months, at a time when buildable land is scarce and land values are soaring.

And I disagree with the suggestion that the city not spend budgeted money for highlands public infrastructure merely because the Community Renewal Act (CRA) failed. The first million dollars of highland money was set aside during the Jesse Tanner administration, when there was no talk of CRA. This money can be used to fix crumbling sidewalks and inferior pavement which has made it difficult for even the most motivated property owners to obtain curbside appeal. And the CRA, formerly known as the Urban Renewal Act, is not always effective. Historically, half of the time CRA has been used across the nation it has made things worse, not better. It’s had an even worse record where an organized faction of the community is working against it, as has been the case in Renton. I question whether CRA is even appropriate in an area such as Renton Highlands, where market forces are already pushing land values to one million dollars per acre at current conditions, and individual duplexes have been selling for $300,000 to $400,000.

There is no reason that we can’t clean up the highlands quickly using the tools of the free market, collaboration with residents and property owners, and city support and incentives. Enough pessimism and grief. Let’s get it done, and as a partnership!

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Renton backs off Highlands threat: Mayor says by not using power of eminent domain, progress could be slowed

By Dean A. Radford
Journal Reporter

RENTON — In a retreat from what some residents saw as threats to condemn their private property, Mayor Kathy Keolker is recommending that the marketplace become the driving force behind redevelopment of an aging part of the Highlands.

However, not using the city’s power of eminent domain under the state Community Renewal Act could slow the progress toward a healthier and safer neighborhood, she argued, with less public money available for the job.

It’s a course that some on the council favor and certainly one that citizen activists with a strong belief in private property rights support.

Rarely, if ever, have city officials — and the community — faced such an emotionally charged issue as revitalizing the Highlands.

It has soured some relationships within the council, the mayor and some of the people they represent.

“We just need to take a break,” said Keolker, who said she’s saddened by the situation she faces.

“The vision is good. The goal is good. We can’t get there right now,” she said.

The use of the city’s power to condemn property became a rallying point for some neighborhood activists, even though the city offered assurances it would only use such power as a last resort and only to protect public health and safety.

Without a plan for Highlands revitalization in which the city is a major player, Keolker said, it’s unlikely she would recommend spending the $1.5 million the council has set aside for street, sidewalk and stormwater improvements there.

Her recommendations are now before the City Council, which include working with the Renton Housing Authority to redevelop its affordable housing.

And the city would continue to “vigorously pursue” violations of city codes involving “unsafe, unhealthful, derelict or nuisance properties,” she wrote the council.

Keolker has asked the council to still pursue the concept of an urban village for about 360 acres of the Highlands near the Hi-Lands Shopping Center off Sunset Boulevard just east of Interstate 405.

Through new zoning yet developed, the city would increase the housing density in the Highlands area, helping to spark economic development, while still providing affordable housing.

The housing there now — some single-family homes but mostly duplexes and triplexes — was built about 60 years ago to temporarily house World War II workers at the Boeing plant in Renton and their families.

Keolker has taken the brunt of the criticism from those Highlands’ activists who say the city is being heavy-handed in its drive to redevelop the neighborhood.

She points out that this is the city’s policy — not hers — and the City Council told her to act boldly and aggressively in the Highlands.

The council was 100 percent behind the policy, but that support has waned, in part because of misinformation spread by neighborhood activists, she said.

Those scare tactics, Keolker said, have prevented a discussion about affordable housing for those on lower incomes who live in the Highlands.

Prominent among those activists is Inez Somerville Petersen, the secretary of the Highlands Community Association. The group, she said, was to lay out its next moves Tuesday night at a board meeting, but she said they won’t drop their appeal of land-use decisions the city has made in the Highlands.

She denies spreading misinformation either at City Council meetings or through her numerous e-mails. Her information, she said, comes from official city sources.

To understand Keolker’s message, Petersen said, you have to read between the lines.

“The declaration of blight is taken off the table, but only temporarily,” Petersen said. She points to a line in Keolker’s letter:

“In time, we may find that some of our original ideas will become necessary to bring about widespread improvements,” Keolker wrote.

To Petersen, that means that Keolker “is not really conceding anything here.”

It’s too early to say how property owners and prospective developers will respond to redoing the neighborhood. But ultimately the city may have to step in “unless some miracle occurs,” Keolker said. “You can always hope for miracles.”

Angering Petersen, too, is the loss of the city’s official recognition of the association because she lives along Lake Washington, not the Highlands. It’s city policy that board members of its neighborhood associations actually live in the neighborhood.

“She (Keolker) has tried to buy herself some time to get her own cronies in a housing association that will go along with her ideas,” Petersen said.

Keolker said there are plenty of Highlands residents who support revitalization, some of whom don’t like the direction the Highlands association has taken or its political activism.

“We would like to have a positive relationship with the people who live in the Highlands,” she said.

Keolker won’t place a deadline on when she wants to see real progress in the Highlands, something, she said, that might look like an “implied threat.”

And Petersen said “there is no timeline on private property rights.”

Randy Corman, the council’s president, said from his viewpoint there is no timeline to get things done in the Highlands by the private sector. However, redevelopment will occur and some residents will fix up their homes.

“We won’t be able to force it,” he said.

Dean Radford covers Renton. He can be reached at dean.radford@kingcountyjournal.com or 253-872-6719.

Last modified: June 28. 2006 12:00AM

I want to see the Highlands revitalized as much or more than just about anyone else. I’ve lived (with my family of seven) within two blocks of the 1940s duplex area for 20 years. For fifteen years I have been an owner of a remodeled duplex in this neighborhood, and I’ve never lost faith that the area was poised for an economic renaissance (For 15 years I’ve been sure that the area will turn the corner the next year).

When prosperity did not come, I began tossing in my two cents over the years, letting the City Economic Development department know that the area could probably sustain a slightly higher housing density (such as small lot single family, or possibly townhouses) if that is what it would take to finally bring some new construction. For this reason, I was delighted this year when the mayor announced that staff was going to focus attention on finally revitalizing the highland residential areas.

Somewhere along the way, however, we drove off-course, hit some bumps, lost our cargo, and had a wreck. And like a highway accident, there was a lot of blame afterward. But it’s now time to get our bearings and get going in a safe and appropriate direction.

Since the property is privately held, the city can not treat the land as a blank slate. Any illusion of that has been eliminated by the clear resistance the neighborhood had shown to the mechanisms of blighting, community renewal act imposition, and eminent domain. Efforts to use these tools now or in the forseeable future will certainly meet with strong opposition from at least some of the residents and property owners. HCA (hca-renton.org) is organizing more activities to shut down this option, and to me it is as sensible as deliberately running a car into a brick wall for us to continue trying this approach.

Instead, we need to get the residents and land owners back on our side, and work this issue as a team. I don’t think it will be that difficult. HCA’s website has a proposal that seems very sensible to me. I expect that if we adopted it today, we would see both new construction and improved maintenance in the Highlands. In general the HCA proposal calls for flexible zoning, allowing single-family and duplexes as conforming uses, aesthetic standards for higher-density housing, low interest loans to seniors who need to maintain the appearance of their property, tighter maintenance standards in the neighborhood, aggressive enforcement by the city code compliance officers, public infrastructure maintenance where needed, neighbors joining together to enact neighborhood covenants, increased coordination with the police and/or neighborhood watch, and no declaration of blight or eminent domain takings. None of this seems counter-productive to me, and several leaders of HCA have already said that they can live with our proposed zoning if we continue to allow low density as well.

I would add to the HCA proposal some tools that we could supply as a city, at no cost to the property owners. For instance, we could consider creating stock-plans for townhouse development; “follow this free building plan, and you are allowed four new townhouses where you currently have an old duplex” for instance. we could also waive mitigation and impact fees in the redevelopment district.

We have talked about creating a citizen committee to oversee this plan. I think this is a good step, if we can readily reach agreement on who the comittee members are. If we have too much trouble reaching agreement on this point, we may have to keep the planning in the hands of the council. I would feel best having members of this committee primarily be property owners and residents in the neighborhood, supplemented by a representative of Renton Housing Authority, the planning commission, a city council member, and a city staff member.

The only thing we will need to let go of is the view that we are going to build high-density apartments at this site, on land that we have accumulated by eminent domain takings. Since I never wanted such a thing to happen, this one is pretty easy for me to let go of.

The final concern is what happens if some lone holdout refuses to fix or sell their old duplex, and it runs the neighborhood down. I believe the answer to this is that if it in really bad shape, we can solve it under current nuisance abatement ordinances with far less legal expense and political issues than we will incur trying to blight a neighborhood in the face of so much opposition. The public speakers at our hearings have made the case that many of the owners are not trying to harm neighboring property values; they would like to do more, but because of age or limited financial means they can not. In these cases, the option of extending property repair and clean-up assistance, rather than an eviction notice, seems more humane.

I hope you, citizens of Renton, can agree with me. I will be encouraging the rest of the council to move in this direction. With it’s outstanding vistas, excellent access, proximity to shopping and the lake, and fantastic residents, we can make the Renton Highlands a beautiful place to live.

Me on an afternoon walk with my family through the North Harrington neighborhood.