Urban Growth Plans Debated

When Vice President Al Gore visits Seattle today, he is expected to praise King County for curbing sprawl.

But the trade-off for the county's latest scheme to corral growth and save open space may add another Microsoft building to a controversial development in the Cascade foothills.

Shortly after Gore leaves, County Executive Ron Sims will announce an unusual deal with developer Port Blakely Communities.

Sims wants to let Port Blakely enlarge Issaquah Highlands, a 2,100-acre housing and office development under construction where Interstate 90 turns up toward Snoqualmie Pass.

In return, Port Blakely would preserve 330 acres of forest land that Sims desperately wants for a growing "emerald crescent" of open space around the urban area.

Sims said Gore was impressed when Sims described that vision during recent White House visits, and today Gore will help present the county with a regional planning award.

"What we're saying in our growth-management strategy is we need to reduce rural growth and increase urban growth, but we don't have the money to make it happen," Sims said. "So we're relying on private-sector incentives to make this happen."

Even some critics of the Highlands think it's a good way for the public to get more open space. Others fear the deal may cause more eastward sprawl, perhaps all the way into Kittitas County.

The urban-growth boundary was pushed farther into the Cascades to accommodate the Highlands. Adding more offices along that line would increase demand for housing in the rural area - encouraging commutes from as far as Cle Elum, said Tracy Burrows, planning director for 1,000 Friends of Washington, an anti-sprawl advocacy group.

"That employment center is an engine for sprawling housing out beyond the urban growth area," Burrows said.

Either way, it's an unusual debut for the county's "transfer of development rights" program, a planning tool intended to shift growth into cities and preserve rural areas.

When Sims announced the program in December, it was geared to downtown Seattle. He and Mayor Paul Schell offered to bend voter-mandated height limits for developers who pay to preserve county greenbelts.

Donald Trump made a similar deal with New York City for his latest skyscraper.

And Microsoft did the same in Redmond, where it preserved farmland to build a large parking garage.

Swapping densities "tends to be controversial" because residents are surprised by the large projects that result, said Redmond planner Tim Trohimovich. But he considers it one of the best ways for government to regulate where growth occurs.

"I learned a long time ago that the most effective land-use regulations provide both regulations and incentives," he said.

Growing the Highlands

So far the program in downtown Seattle has no takers, but Port Blakely is eager to expand the Highlands, where homes are selling well and Microsoft is planning its second headquarters campus.

"They need it to make Microsoft happen," said County Councilman Brian Derdowski of Issaquah, a former Port Blakely opponent who supports Sims' plan.

What's ironic is that the Highlands was until recently a rural forest. Only after six years of ferocious lobbying was the urban-level project allowed at all.

Even Sims voted against it in 1993, when it was called Grand Ridge, he was on the Metropolitan King County Council and the developer was former Seattle Seahawk owner Ken Behring.

"I am not sympathetic to intensifying density in that area," Sims told The Seattle Times when Behring proposed the development in 1990.

Critics at the time, including the Seattle City Council, said it would break the spirit of growth management to allow a massive development outside the urban-rural line that was supposed to contain growth.

Behring sold to Port Blakely, which finally got approval to build in 1996.

Approval came after Port Blakely agreed to preserve four acres of open space for every acre of land it developed. Called the "4-to-1" program, it was another planning device championed by Sims and Gov. Gary Locke, who was then King County executive.

After it offered up 1,400 acres of open space, Port Blakely was allowed to build up to 3,250 homes and apartments, a shopping center and 2.9 million square feet of office space.

Land-use deals

Last year Microsoft bought an option on the commercial space, and the state and federal governments agreed to help pay for a new freeway interchange to the project.

Meanwhile, Sims has directed the county to spend more than $4 million buying more open space east of the Highlands, in the Preston area, to complete a chain of forests and parks along the I-90 corridor.

The 330 acres in question would expand that emerald crescent by linking the Preston land to the 1,400 acres given by Port Blakely.

Sims expects to finalize the deal in a few weeks, then send it to the County Council and Issaquah officials for public hearings and approval.

"I think it's going to get down to traffic and whether the proposed improvements to our road system will be able to handle the increased traffic we're going to get," said Issaquah City Councilman Dave Kappler, a former Grand Ridge opponent who backs Sims' plan.

Sims' aides told the Issaquah council the deal would allow more commercial-building space on the west side of the Highlands, near a

gravel pit.

Burrows said 1,000 Friends of Washington would be supportive if the deal provided more housing, rather than offices. But she's at least glad for the attention land use is starting to receive from leaders such as Gore.

"I'm delighted he's bringing these issues to a national prominence," she said, adding that "Land use across the country is the issue that people are really concerned about."

Brier Dudley's phone message number is 206-515-5687. His e-mail address is: bdudley@seattletimes.com