School board moves to take Park Avenue properties

Board unanimously approves eminent domain proceedings to begin building new school

The Renton School District Board of Directors during a special meeting on May 12 unanimously voted to begin condemnation proceedings on a pair of houses and a handful of leases located on the future site of a new elementary school in North Renton.

“The administration believes the acquisition of these properties is necessary to properly design and build a school,” interim Superintendent Dr. Art Jarvis told the board prior to the vote.

The decision authorizes the district to begin eminent domain proceedings to take the Park Avenue properties at fair market value in order to begin building the new school.

The hearing and vote took place at a special meeting of the board called for the purpose of the public hearing the day after the board’s regular meeting May 11.

At question were two property owners in the 300 block of Park Avenue who have refused to sell to the district. One, Chris Saffel is a business owner who said the district’s offer is not nearly enough for him to find a similar location that fits his needs. The other, Jeff Coolee, is a paraplegic who has spent decades getting his house and yard accessible for his wheelchair following an accident who does not want to move and who also said offers from the district were not enough to make the changes he would need in a new home, assuming one could be found that met his location needs, like being on a bus route.

For the district, the two properties on the 300 block of Park Avenue North are necessary to simplify the layout, provide more play and open space on a site that even with the properties would be smaller than a normal school site, and would allow the building to front on Park Avenue, something the city has requested.

Even with the additional properties, the total size of the land involved comes to only 9.5 acres, or about 5 acres less than a normal school site, according to documents provided by the district. Without the parcels in question (which includes the two properties on Park and a property on 3rd), the area drops to a total of about 5 acres.

Eminent domain is the process municipalities use in order to take private land for the public good. School districts are allowed to use eminent domain proceedings in order to build schools, as laid out in RCW 8.16.

Saffel attending the public hearing Thursday and was the only member of the public to speak.

Saffel urged the board to reconsider and pointed to a diagram that was supplied to the Renton Reporter earlier this year showing a scenario in which his building and Coolee’s could remain, even after a new school was built.

Following the meeting, Saffel also reiterated that he would be willing to move if he received an offer that would cover his costs, adding that the type of commercially zoned building with the amenities he needs in a similar location to the one he has are usually up to about twice the amount he was offered for his property.

“If I had somewhere to go, we’d have been gone six months ago,” he said.

Coolee did not attend the meeting, saying in an email that the board had already made their decision on the matter.

“My being at that meeting would not have done me any good, their minds were already made up,” he wrote.

Following the brief comments from Jarvis, Renton Planning Director Chip Vincent explained the city’s preference for locating the school on Park Avenue as a way to both try to create Park Avenue as a “multi-modal transportation system” but also as a way to create an open space buffer between the new school and the neighborhood to the east.

Following Saffel’s comments, the Board recessed to an executive session to discuss “property acquisition” and then returned and voted with no comments.

After the vote, Board President Al Talley said a vote like this was not something they wanted to do, but felt necessary because “we need the space.”

“It’s not (a vote) we enjoy,” Talley said. “But we have kids in portables.”

District spokesman Randy Matheson said the district’s goal was still to work with the property owners to find a solution, but a decision by Jarvis to move up the new school’s opening date by a year – to September 2018 – in order to accommodate the district’s classroom space needs forced the board to take action sooner than later.

“We needed it when we put it in front of voters,” Jarvis said.

“This is a last resort,” Matheson said. “but it is the process we will follow until the end if we have to.”

Matheson also said the image to which Saffel was referring, showing the project going forward without the two properties in question, was not an official plan, but a suggestion.

As laid out in the RCW, the district will work with the property owners, but if an agreement cannot be reached, a jury will be impaneled to decide on the compensation for the properties in question. There is an opportunity to appeal the decision by either party.

Saffel indicated he hoped to find a reasonable settlement with the district and spent some time after the meeting discussing his concerns with Matheson, who also pledged to work with Saffel.

Coolee said in his email he planned on getting a new lawyer to try and convince a judge they do not need his property to build the school or convince a jury that his home and his needs for a new place to live are worth more than the district was offering.