Written by 
Sarah Becker asks for Council assistance regarding the taking of property near Renton High School
Many long-time residents are being forcibly evicted from their homes by a new ballfield being built with the rebuild of Renton High School. These residents have been seeking assistance from Renton’s Council and Mayor in recent City Council meetings. City officials keep ducking the spotlight, either saying nothing or insisting it’s the School District’s jurisdiction. This is a shirking of their responsibility, for half a dozen reasons.
(1) These are Renton residents, seeking help. Their City officials should be willing to use their influence to help them. Some of the affected residents have put forward more cost-effective alternative designs that don’t take their homes, like fitting a ballpark into the Renton Memorial Stadium parking lot, or building a pool (or both) instead of building another ball field in the middle of Tobin Street. These suggestions have been ignored by the District, but the City owns part of the property too, and therefore has bargaining clout.
(2) Renton’s streets are impacted: The School District has made the assumption that they will take over Tobin, Tillicum and Shattuck Streets, which are all city-owned property. This should have been negotiated with Renton Council before the District ever made the choice to expand the school into these streets. When I was on Renton Council, our Fire Department did not even let Tobin homeowners have a speed bump installed on their street, citing the concern that Tobin provides an important alternate street for emergency vehicles in the event of an Airport Way collision. Now, without discussion, the Council acquiesces to losing the entire street without a single discussion. With this closure, emergency vehicles will have to go all the way to the one-way couplet of South 2nd and South 3rd if Airport Way gets jammed, a long way around that can add critical time to emergency responses– this was worthy of a public discussion.
The School District assumes Renton will hand over parts of Tillicum, Shattuck, and Tobin Streets; Renton Council has apparently never discussed it
(3) Renton is losing housing: Ask anyone in our area what the number one concern is, and they’ll probably tell you its housing and homelessness. Renton officials claim to be concerned about homelessness and evictions, and they have a chance to demonstrate it by weighing-in on the school district’s plan. They do not have to give up Tobin Street and all its homes.
(4) Renton is losing businesses and economic vitality. Renton works hard to attract business to our city, and should have at least asked questions before sending at least eight businesses packing. The new Chihuly-style glass studio coming in would have had positive city-wide economic development impact, and it has been prevented from locating here. A new restaurant was days away from opening, and the School District has now paid $6,000,000 (six million) dollars for their meticulously-remodeled property so that the District can tear it down.
(5) Renton is losing substantial tax revenue. Renton’s taxable property will drop by 50-100 million dollars with this change, since school property is exempt from property taxes. All the rest of us will have to pay more to make up for the lost property tax on this lost valuation (around a million dollars per year currently). In addition, the businesses won’t be paying sales tax to the city. We will all make up the difference by paying higher taxes ourselves.
(6) There were process issues. The Renton School District was not forthcoming with voters that passage of this bond issue would lead to mass condemnations and evictions. Ideally Renton officials should have been aware of this, and should have made it public. If they didn’t learn about it until after the election, they could still take action to help the residents deal with the cruel surprise. It was unseemly, if not illegal, for this kind of information to be withheld from the voters, and Renton officials by their silence appear to be endorsing it.
Meredith Farmer shared several concerns with Renton Council on Monday, including the condemnation of property near Renton High School.
32 homes and 8 businesses are being destroyed to make way for a new baseball field at Renton High. Affected residents keep suggesting other options for the fields, but the School District and City leaders will not speak with them. This home on Tobin is one of the homes.
The Council Meeting can be viewed here.
Thank you for your insight on the potential losses of Tobin, Tillicum and Shattuck Streets.
Last October 14th, at the affected neighborhoods request, Matt Feldmeyer Executive Director for the school project, held a meeting at the RHS library in regards to the Renton High School’s desire to take over the houses and businesses to the north of the school. At that meeting I asked Matt how the Renton School Board knew that they could get rid of Tobin Street to put in a ball field – especially since there are above ground utility poles all down that street, along with Tobin offering an alternate route east/west next to Airport Way. Matt stated that the Renton School Board met with City Officials back in the spring of 2024 regarding pre-approving the vacation of Tobin Street. Matt told our concerned group the City already gave the school the ‘go-ahead’ on the expansion project.
But a few weeks later, I met with the mayor of Renton and inquired about this pre-approval. I asked the mayor why the City of Renton wasn’t working with the Renton School Board to find other options to save the homes and businesses, instead giving the board the green light for demolition. The mayor told me there had been no such meeting and there was no ‘pre-approval’ given. The mayor also went on to tell me that the city was “going to do whatever the Renton School Board wants us to do.” I was dumbfounded, to say the least.
Regarding the loss of housing. The number going around is 32 single-family homes that are slated for demolition. For those of you new to this information, these home have families living in them and have for years. But to the numbers. Some of these homes were split into duplexes or multiplexes to house multiple families, each on a different level of the home. So a conservative estimate of 3-people per house to up to say 8-people per house, would mean 96 to 256 people being forced out of their homes.
On top of that, there was a 30-unit mixed-unit building in the same neighborhood slated for development called “The Dreamliner”.
https://edocs.rentonwa.gov/Documents/DocView.aspx?id=11037995&dbid=0&repo=CityofRenton
The Dreamliner had already gone through permitting at the City of Renton and was approved for build when the Renton School Board came in with the threat of eminent domain. Back to the numbers. 30 units at a conservative estimate of 2-people per unit up to say 5-people per unit, would mean another 60-150 people without housing in downtown.
So a total of 156 (very conservative number) to 406 (maybe a bit high) people who will not have housing due to the extra softball field the school wants to put in. Housing within walking distance to transit and the school itself. We wouldn’t need more parking spots if the kids and employees can walk to the school.
Oh, and the mayor said directly to me “It’s only 32 houses. They are getting paid to move. We have thousands of units slated to be build throughout Renton.”
Interesting Fishy. Both the Renton mayor and RDS superintendent are Renton High alumni. It’s sad they are so ashamed of their alma mater. It’s a beautiful building. It just needs a pool!
Marcie Palmer