By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Many residents don't see the advantages to incorporation, says Gary King, president of Swanson Dean Daewoo, the company that owns Providence Point.

Swanson Dean Corp. is a longtime Eastside developer that played a big role in creating Sahalee, the first large-scale community on the plateau. King says that despite the growth, there is still a lot of forest land on the plateau.

Two years ago, a cougar was spotted near the intersection of Issaquah-Pine Lake Road and Issaquah-Fall City Road. Along the Old Black Nugget Road there are still sightings of bears, beavers, raptors and other wildlife, says Tina Miller, a basin steward with the county's water/land resources division.

The county wants to maintain animal "corridors" across the plateau by protecting critical wetlands, bogs and streams, Miller says. Some of the plateau's acidic bogs are 10,000 years old and unique in that they support vegetation such as bog cranberry, bog laurel and "cool species," including sundew, Miller says.

But for some, the changes that followed Sahalee have come at too steep a price.

Laureita Caldwell moved to the plateau 24 years ago from Bellevue because her 12-year-old daughter yearned to own a horse. The changes, she says, have not been for the better.

"The whole plateau has been changed drastically, tragically," Caldwell says. "It's terrible to devastate an area so beautiful. It's greed that is driving it."

Caldwell, who lives directly across from the entrance of Klahanie, one of the plateau's master planned communities, has put her house and four acres up for sale and plans to move to Michigan.

"I have just given up. There is no way anyone can fight the big developers and the county at the same time," she says.

While she is upset by what has happened, Caldwell, when asked, says an acre of land fetches up to $100,000.

Continued:

• King County's rural getaway wrestles with rapid growth
• Safety, quiet have lured many to popular plateau
• Some think a new city is the answer
• Old country feel hasn't quite died off