Originally published Saturday, November 29, 1997

By SCOTT SUNDE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

SEATAC -- The neighborhoods on this city's west side will soon vanish.

Gone will be the house and white picket fence where Pete and Margaret Mortenson settled after he retired from the Navy. Progress will tear down Jo Strong's house, practically new since it was rebuilt after a fire three years ago. And the house Carol Richard has called home since 1950 will exist only in memory.

The Port of Seattle already has made offers on 64 of the 388 single-family homes it will buy over the next couple of years to make way for a third runway at Sea-Tac Airport. As the families move, bulldozers will come to erase evidence that children were raised, gardens were tended or lives were lived here.

"It just breaks my heart," Richard said the other day as she sat in her immaculate living room. "It's not fair. It's awful to be able to just come in and say you have to move."

Growth cares little for sentiment.

Airport officials say the third runway is vital. Frequent poor weather means jets can land on only one Sea-Tac runway, leading to delays that could worsen as traffic increases.

The 8,500-foot third runway, which will essentially follow what is now 12th Avenue South, is to be finished in 2004. It will be 2,500 feet from any other runway -- just far enough away to allow staggered landings on two strips during bad weather.

And it will be just far enough west to wipe out whole neighborhoods. In addition to the 388 single-family homes, expansion will take 260 condominiums and apartments, most from the Lora Lake complex. There also are 105 businesses in the area, though firms that can co-exist with increased aircraft noise may be spared.

The port, which owns Sea-Tac, expects to spend around $110 million for the properties. It's a project that looks easy on paper but hard once you walk down the streets in the first "buyout zone" of 88 houses. A few years from now, it will be the staging area for runway construction.

But now it's where Neil Christensen and his family have called home 17 years. "We're perfectly happy here," he said.

After all, this is where the family has celebrated holidays and birthdays. It's where their children, now 13 and 11, learned to walk and ride bikes.

"It's the only home the kids have ever known," he said.

Port officials understand how hard it will be.

"For us, this is the most sensitive issue a public agency can approach," said Gina Marie Lindsey, port aviation director. "There really is no replacement for the history and emotional ties that people have with their homes."

The port's plan has inflamed passions in the first buyout zone. Many people were up in arms last summer when they were contacted by O.R. Conlan Associates Inc., the company hired to buy the land.

Prices seemed low, and people felt the port was ready to sue those who wouldn't immediately sell.

"In the beginning, there was a huge outcry," said Strong, who lives in the first buyout area with her two sons, ages 13 and 15. "Everybody said, 'Let's do something.' We got together and said, 'Hey, this is wrong.'"

Citizens stormed SeaTac City Hall seeking help. At a City Council meeting in September, so many people showed up that some had to be turned away, said Strong, who went door-to-door with her sons to rally neighbors.

The port produced a nine-point plan to ease concerns.

"They were talking to us and our contractor, but they thought they weren't being heard," Lindsey acknowledged.

Among other things, the port agreed to pay for a second appraisal if owners are unhappy with the first. Weekly meetings at local schools are held to answer questions about the buyout program. The time homeowners have to consider an offer has been lengthened by 15 days. And the port has hired outside ombudsmen to help people through the process.

Strong says the changes have improved the acquisition process. But those changes have also put it slightly off schedule. By now, the airport planned to have made offers in the first buyout area and started in a second.

Many in the first area, like Strong and Richard, are waiting to hear what Colan is willing to offer.

"It's been a year, and we're still poking along," Richard said.

Waiting is no easier, of course, since she has never wanted to move. "I had hoped I could stay here the rest of my life," she said.

She is not unique. The port said the average homeowner has lived in the buyout zone for at least 20 years.

Strong, too, would prefer to stay in the home she designed and rebuilt after it burned.

But she added, "The bottom line is, I can be bought. I want as much money as I can possibly get."

The price has been right for many. The port has made 64 offers, signed 40 and closed on 28.

Doris McCabe, who lives near Richard, said the port's offer was fair.

"We know it's time to go. We're elderly, and it's time to make a change," she said.

Others say the price hasn't been right. Christensen's offer was increased by $6,000 after he challenged the appraisal.

The market value of the house is only one aspect. The port also is paying up to $22,500 for replacement housing costs.

Replacement cost is the difference between the value of the home being purchased by the port and that of a comparable house in a nearby neighborhood. The idea is that houses close to the airport are undervalued because of airport noise.

An appraisal, for example, might value a home at $160,000. The replacement cost might add $15,000, for a buyout offer of $175,000.

Christensen found what he thought were comparable houses from $172,000 to $189,000. But so far the port has offered just $169,900, he said.

His replacement choices weren't used. Instead, a smaller house or one under the Sea-Tac flight path were considered.

As a next-to-last resort, he is asking Mic Dinsmore, the port's executive director, to increase the replacement cost. His last resort is to wait until the port condemns his property and then challenge the offer in court, where a judge would determine the fair value of his home.

Lindsey said the port isn't seeking lowball deals and hasn't promised the Colan firm any bonus for getting low prices.

Still, you would be hard-pressed to convince Pete Mortenson of the reliability of the process.

"They just don't seem to be reasonable," he said, taking a break from working in the yard at the home he and his wife bought in 1978.

The half-acre property includes a main house, two-car garage and a smaller house that he rents out. The port offered a total of $170,000.

"It's really insulting," Mortenson said. "The system is wrong."

He and his wife have already moved to a home on the outskirts of Auburn that has fewer amenities, but cost $187,000. A son is living in the SeaTac house while the Mortensons hope for a better offer.

"You hope to work something out," Mortenson said. "You don't want to go to court."

Port officials, too, say they don't want to condemn properties. The port bought 1,400 homes in the 1970s and 1980s, going to court on only 3 percent.

But that was a different time. Many of those people demanded the port buy their homes to escape a daily bombardment of jet noise.

Now the port is buying from people who often don't want to move, and some of whom oppose third runway construction.

This time, the port may find itself more frequently in court, Lindsey said.