Kent City Council to consider terminating Pine Tree Park sale

The Kent City Council is expected to vote on Tuesday night whether to terminate the sale of Pine Tree Park to a housing developer.

City staff reached a verbal settlement agreement with Kirkland-based Oakpointe Communities that will terminate the sale of the park, according to a report in the council packet from Derek Matheson, city chief administrative officer. The council meets at 7 p.m. at City Hall.

Matheson and City  Attorney Tom Brubaker will update the council in executive session on Tuesday about the proposed settlement, according to Matheson. Details have not been released by city officials because it is a property negotiation. If a written agreement is ready by the meeting, the council will have the option to vote on the agreement after executive session.

Council President Bill Boyce confirmed in a phone interview that the council will hear about the park settlement agreement in executive session and then return to an open meeting before the public to possibly vote on the sale. An item called “Pine Tree Park Settlement Agreement” is the final listing on the council agenda for a vote after the executive session.

The council is allowed to go into executive session under state law to consider the acquisition of real estate by lease or purchase when public knowledge regarding such consideration would cause a likelihood of increased price. However, final action selling or leasing public property shall be taken in a meeting open to the public.

The council discussed at a March 15 workshop an option to try to sell to Oakpointe what’s known as the East Hill maintenance shop site for a housing development rather than the 10-acre neighborhood park near 114th Avenue Southeast, south of Southeast 274th Street.

The East Hill property is a 20-acre city-owned parcel 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. 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.

Council members decided to reconsider the park sale after an organized effort by neighbors to save the park. Council members came under fire from residents 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 of 64 homes, also to be built on 4 acres the developer bought from the Kent School District next to Pine Tree Elementary School.

The council approved the sale of the park for $2 million to Oakpointe in September 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 is scheduled to close in June. City staff informed the council that the park was difficult to access so it was considered surplus property.

But initially the council was told the revenue could be used to upgrade other parks before finding out any proceeds from a sale would need to be spent to buy land of equal or greater park, recreational or open space value because 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.