Group needs $1 million to save wildlife haven in West Seattle

Matt Houghton clambered through madrona and willow trees yesterday, pointing out the nests of a Cooper's hawk and a pygmy owl and the site where he found coyote scat.

The grove, just seven houses down from his West Seattle home on 16th Avenue Southwest, represents a valuable habitat, he said, a place where ecologists and zoologists have recorded 25 native plant and 41 bird species.

"This is the only spot in the whole (West Duwamish) greenbelt with this much diversity," said Houghton, which is why he has joined other preservationists to take on a daunting task: raising perhaps more than $1 million to buy 7 acres from the city of Seattle to keep the land from being developed for housing.

It's not merely a case of development vs. green space. Other interested parties are several social service and cultural organizations that would benefit from the proceeds of a property sale, which has the support of Mayor Greg Nickels.

The land is the western portion of a 20-acre undeveloped site, known as the Soundway property. The parcel pokes out from the greenbelt and lies between the community college and the Riverview neighborhood.

Although the city has agreed to conserve the easterly 13 acres, preservation groups want it to protect all of it from development. They say the land is needed for a link in the proposed Riverview Trail, which would connect an existing bike path in the Riverview playfields to the college campus and beyond in the greenbelt.

The City Council and Nickels recently agreed to give the preservationists until Sept. 30, 2005, to buy the property from the city. The price would be equal to the appraised value of the land. The city will be getting an appraisal, and Mary Pearson, real-estate services director, wouldn't estimate the property's value.

West Seattle resident Bill Jaback, one of the leaders of the preservation effort, believes his group will need to come up with at least $1.2 million. He will meet this weekend with Houghton and Pete Spalding, the Delridge representative on the City Neighborhood Council, to map strategy.

With 300 residents signing a petition in support of protecting the entire site, "we've built up a tremendous amount of support in the neighborhood," Spalding said. "We want to marshal it and not let it die."


		Grant M. Haller / P-I
	Matt Houghton walks around a willow tree near his West Seattle home. Houghton and others are trying to preserve the green space from development.

The three men say they will approach conservancy groups and foundations for funding, though they acknowledge they face difficult odds.

Pearson said the city, in its original plan, tried a balancing act. The mayor wanted to retain the bulk of the Soundway property for natural habitat and sell the upper portion to allow development of 39 housing units. The buyer would be required to build and maintain a pedestrian and bicycle trail that would be connected to the Riverview Trail, among other conditions of sale.

The proceeds, along with those from the sale of other unused parcels, would give $1 million for an expanded Wing Luke Asian Museum, $1 million for a new African-American Heritage Museum, $619,000 for an expanded Asian Counseling and Referral Service, and $1.3 million for a city-run homeless center.

"It was a proposal to achieve multiple important goals for the city," Pearson said.

The delay in the sale of the Soundway property shouldn't affect those projects because funding for them was included in the city's recently approved 2005-06 budget, said Sung Yang, Nickels' liaison with the City Council.

"As long as the property is sold by the end of 2006, we'd be fine," he said. "That's why there was some level of comfort in waiting nine months (for the preservations to try to buy the site)."

Houghton, Jaback and Spalding say the intended beneficiaries of a property sale are organizations worthy of support -- but not with money gained from developing the western portion of Soundway.

"It seems the only reason they're selling it is to support other constituencies," Spalding said. "They money is not coming back to West Seattle."

While the city's preservation of the majority of the site sounds generous, they say the city is keeping the most environmentally valuable portion and giving up the part that is largely undevelopable, partly because of a steep slope leading into an abandoned gravel pit.

Even though a trail would be required if the property were developed, that's far less desirable than a trail through a green space, they said.

Bill Blair, a property-acquisition planner for the parks department, said his department is most interested in the easterly 13 acres and is "inclined" to go along with the city's recommendation for development of the westerly 7 acres.

City Councilman Tom Rasmussen favors preserving it all.

"The city is becoming increasingly dense in terms of development," he said. "I think the city should retain as much open space and open habitat as it can. That doesn't mean we'll save all open space. But I'm convinced this is worth saving."

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