“Current
Issues” Archives
Past public issues
affecting the Hollywood Hill residents and neighbors and responses to and
comments regarding those issues. |
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(Note: the “Muller
Farm Swap” ordinance was abandoned in 2006.) Progress on the Muller Swap status
update The article below
addresses two proposals for a swap between county owned property and parts of
the Muller farm, owned by Lake Washington Youth Soccer. Since that article
was written, there has been progress on this issue in that the proposal to
remove Farmland Preservation Program deed restrictions from one of the Muller
parcels, referred to as PO2 below, has been dropped "indefinitely."
This is a positive development in our efforts to see an agreement which will
provide additional sports fields in our area while preserving essential
elements of farmland and open space protections as well as the interests of
county taxpayers. Land-use Designations in the Most of the It is a
central tenet of the Hollywood Hill Association that the rural character of
our neighborhood is closely linked with the continuation of the rural and
agricultural designation of the There are two
separate ways by which the Since the Starting in
the sixties and accelerating in the seventies, the new phenomenon of suburban
sprawl began to appear on the eastside of Accordingly,
public discussion on sprawl quickly came to the conclusion that growth was
inevitable and the best that we could do was to plan it, direct it and strive
to avoid the worst ravages of unplanned sprawl. Up to this
point, local zoning had been the principal tool for land-use planners.
However, local zoning was observed to be ineffective in the long run at
preventing urban sprawl and especially at preserving resource lands and green
belts. As a result,
in 1979, the citizens of Most of the While the
Farmland Preservation Program has been effective in preserving some of our
best remaining agricultural lands from being paved over, it was recognized
that the bigger issue of urban sprawl needed direct attention on a
region-wide scale. After decades of discussion and debate, in 1989, In a
nutshell, what the GMA provides is local land-use
planning that is enforceable under The GMA requires that each municipality create its own
Comprehensive Plan as to how it will manage future growth. Hollywood Hill is
situated in unincorporated The What makes
the GMA such a powerful tool is that, while it
leaves the creation of Comprehensive Plans up to the local municipalities,
once the plans are in place, they are enforceable under State law. This
element is designed to avoid the arbitrary granting of exceptions to local
zoning which has proven time and again to be the Achilles Heel of traditional
growth planning when it comes to avoiding urban sprawl. The crafters
of the GMA recognized that the lands most
susceptible to the pressures of sprawl tend to be our Resource lands.
Accordingly, the GMA recognizes three categories of
Resource lands, Agriculture, In
designating Agriculture Resource lands, a municipality identifies the areas
in its Comprehensive Plan. In
recognizing an area as Agriculture Resource, a municipality enacts policies
that prohibit any new nonagricultural uses of these lands. (It should be
noted that there are some preexisting nonagricultural uses within some of
these designated areas which are grandfathered uses.) It is this
prohibition on new nonagricultural uses on land zoned as Agriculture
Resource, backed up by the Farmland Preservation Program,
that has protected the HOLLYWOOD HILL
ASSOCIATION POSITION ON PROPOSED MULLER The Executive is considering sending two ordinances to the
Council which would authorize certain actions concerning 60 Acres South owned
by PO1 would authorize the transfer of the County owned 60
Acres South property located in the City of PO2 would make a finding that Parcel A of the Muller Farm
is no longer suitable for agriculture and would also authorize removing
Parcel A from the FPP if approved by the voters of The following is an outline of the position of the
Hollywood Hill Association (HAA) concerning the
proposed ordinances. PO1: The HHA supports a trade of the County owned 60 Acres
South parcel and Parcel B of the Muller Farm owned by the LWYSA.
However, the HAA believes that Parcel C should be
included in the trade. 1. The County should require inclusion of Parcel C as well
as Parcel B of the Muller farm in the exchange. Such a condition is warranted
because: This would keep the Muller farm whole. The infrastructure
provided by the barn and other structures on Parcel C make the farm work.
Without them, a farmer would need to build new facilities, which would cover
prime soils, and add significant complication to establishing an operation on
the property. Appraisals of LWYSA’s
Parcel B show that it is worth less than Parcels A and B are contiguous and are in the FPP. Parcels B and C are within the Sammamish Valley 2. Such a trade would allow for immediate construction of
much needed active recreation facilities proximate to existing LWYSA leased soccer field facilities on 60 Acres
North. The trade would be contingent on securing other acceptable
locations for use by the traditional passive use activities accommodated by
60 Acres South. PO2: The HHA adamantly opposes the proposal to remove
parcel A of the Muller farm from the Farmland Preservation Program. The test required to remove properties from the FPP is stringent. Parcel A does not meet the most basic
requirement for removal of a property from the FPP,
which stipulates the removal process may be commenced only if the property is
clearly unsuitable for agriculture. The bond ordinance that approved funds to
acquire development rights under the FPP included
this stringent test to address the inevitable requests to remove properties
from the program and from agricultural uses. It is the County's obligation to
uphold and enforce the requirements of the bond ordinance and the deed
restrictions. Some points supporting our reasoning are: 1. The State Supreme Court held in the Benaroya
decision that an owner’s subjective intent and refusal to farm a piece
of land is irrelevant in making a determination of its suitability for
agriculture. This means that the disallowance of agricultural activity by LWYSA on its property does not demonstrate any
unsuitability for agriculture. 2. Parcel A is eminently suitable for agricultural. The
soils are some of the best agricultural soils in the country. Agricultural
businesses are thriving in the 3. The FPP was never intended to
allow individual properties to be removed from the program because the owner
chose not to farm the property. This point is reinforced by the Benaroya decision, which holds that in determining
whether property is appropriately and legally designated as agriculture under
the GMA, the suitability for agricultural uses must
be looked at by taking the surrounding area and properties into account.
Suitability for agriculture must take into consideration the property in
issue in relation to the aggregate. In other words, parcel A is part of the 4. Although parcel A has been rezoned from Agricultural to
Urban Recreation by the City of 5. It would set a very dangerous precedent if the County
were to make a determination of agricultural unsuitability on an individual
parcel which is in fact clearly suitable for agriculture. The trade discussed in PO1 (above) provides an equitable
exchange which can stand on its own merit.
Perhaps the largest single threat to efforts to preserve
agricultural resources is land value inflation. Maintenance of policies which
encourage the marketplace to reflect agricultural land valuations is crucial
to saving our farms. Land is valued by what is permitted to be done on it. Any
activity other than farming, be it industrial,
residential, retail, or even active recreation, can afford to pay more for
land than the economics of agriculture can support. Allowing any of these
activities on farmland drives local farm land prices above what a farmer can
afford to pay and then expect to make a profit by farming it. The result of expanding allowable uses on farmland is that
farming dies in that area. This is why there are such strict limitations on
what is permitted on protected farmland, both under the FPP
and the Growth Management Act. As for the laws and policies protecting the small
percentage of our county that we have managed to set aside for farming,
allowing any non-agricultural development on these farmlands would set legal
precedents likely to precipitate a domino effect. And once property is
converted to another use, it will never be returned to agriculture. The principles and requirements of the FPP
require the preservation of parcel A for farming. The integrity of the
program must be defended if our community is to avoid the loss of these
valuable and irreplaceable lands, as demonstrated countless times locally in * |