Kent City Council terminates Pine Tree Park sale; but settlement costs $760,000

The city of Kent won’t be selling Pine Tree Park after all.

But it will cost taxpayers $760,000 for the settlement agreement city officials reached with Oakpointe Communities, the Kirkland-based housing developer who had bought the 10-acre property last fall for $2 million.

The City Council voted 5-2 on Tuesday night to terminate the park sale that it had agreed to sell to Oakpointe in September for a 64-home development near 114th Avenue Southeast, south of South 274th Street. Council members Dana Ralph and Les Thomas voted against stopping the sale.

“I’m glad that it was saved,” said Kristy Herrick, who lives across the street from the neighborhood park and led the drive to stop the sale. “I still think they could have just said go ahead and buy it but you can’t build anything because we can’t clear the covenants (set when King County voters in the 1960s approved preserving the land as a park).

“But this is better than nothing. I’m sorry they have to spend that money but they’re going to spend millions on the park down the road (for a synthetic turf ball field at Hogan Park at Russell Road) and they are going to spend a bunch on the golf course. Nothing’s used by everybody.”

Council members came under fire from residents earlier this year not only for selling the park, but because the city didn’t notify anyone about the deal until it posted a sign at the park in January about the proposed housing development.

The council approved the sale last fall after an executive session but didn’t discuss the matter in the public session before the unanimous vote in favor of the sale in an effort to boost park revenue. The sale was scheduled to close in June. City staff informed the council that the park was difficult to access so it was considered surplus property.

The council also didn’t get all of the facts about how it could spend the $2 million from selling the park.

“Based on information we had from King County, we believed in September that the revenue from the sale of Pine Tree Park could be used to reinvest in other existing parks,” Council President Bill Boyce said in a prepared statement after the vote Tuesday. “We learned recently that isn’t the case. The money must be used to buy land of equal or greater park, recreational or open space value.”

King County voters approved a Forward Thrust measure in the 1960s to allow the purchase of the land for a park. The city later annexed the park from the county. That bond measure set how proceeds of a park sale could be used if it was ever sold.

Boyce said the council appreciated the passion and enthusiasm park neighbors showed through phone calls, emails, letters and public comment urging the city to keep the park.

The settlement with Kirkland-based Oakpointe includes:

• The city will return a $150,000 down payment Oakpointe paid last year

• The city will reimburse Oakpointe $760,000 for expenses to date

• If the council decides within the next three years to sell the city’s 20-acre East Hill Shops site, Oakpointe will have the right of first refusal to buy the property at an appraised fair market value, plus an additional $260,000

The East Hill property is south of Southeast 248th Street and Clark Lake and east of 120th Avenue Southeast. The city bought the property as an alternate maintenance shop site from the Russell Road shop. The Parks Department uses a small part of the parcel for employees and vehicle storage, but the council abandoned plans to build a new maintenance shop, making the land available to surplus for development.

The council met for 70 minutes in executive session before taking its vote. About 20 park supporters waited in the City Hall lobby before returning to Council Chambers when the council reconvened its public meeting.

Ralph, who announced last month that she is running to be mayor next year, opposed stopping the sale.

“What I’m voting against is spending (nearly) $800,000 to fix mistakes that were made,” Ralph said before the vote. “It’s my job as a council member to steward not only public space but public dollars and I’m having a really hard time justifying spending $800,000 because of a series of mistakes made by staff. The council acted on them but lesson learned going forward, I have more due diligence to do when opinions are given. I need to ask harder questions.

“I look at the $800,000 and think about the roads that could be fixed, the sidewalks that could be fixed, the roof at the Senior Center and all of the parks in the city. We are sacrificing one thing for the other.”

The city will take $760,000 out of its capital reserve fund (formerly called by the city a capital improvement fund) to cover the payment to Oakpointe. Capital reserve funds are used for streets, parks and other projects.

Councilman Jim Berrios approved ending the sale.

“Once we figured out we were misled by King County and a couple of other issues were concerning, I was clear in my mind that this is the wrong thing to do and I’m still not supporting the sale of the park,” Berrios said prior to the vote. “I am concerned about the accountability factor. We are having to spend $800,000 for a process that we went through that has turned out to be a real bitter situation for our community. There seems to be a lack of trust and that really concerns me.”