Good for the City? Good for the Developer? Good for Both?

To celebrate 20 years of publishing Whatcom Watch, we will be publishing excerpts from 20 years ago. David Laws has been generous enough to volunteer to review the Whatcom Watch from 20 years ago to find suitable material to reprint. The below excerpts are from the April 1994 issue of Whatcom Watch.

Proposed Land Property Trade:

Good for the City? Good for the Developer? Good for Both?

Is This the Best Possible Deal?

by Sue Lorentz

On April 18, [1994] the Bellingham City Council will be considering proposals for the Levin’s warehouse at Chestnut and Railroad. One of these proposals goes far beyond the Levin’s building and is actually a massive land and property trade that will affect many areas of Whatcom County.

The proposal, put forward by Bellingham developer Steve Brisbane, would see five pieces of property change from city ownership to Mr. Brisbane’s ownership. Three of these properties are downtown and two are in the county. In exchange, the city would get actual ownership of one piece of property and partial development rights to another. These pieces are adjacent to Arroyo Park and the city-owned piece of property that abuts the extension of Larrabee State Park brought about by the recent land trade between Trillium, the Department of Natural Resources, State Parks, Whatcom County, and Bellingham. The city would also receive approximately $500,000 of trail development and trail building along the interurban Trail and through the newly acquired properties. The piece that the city would acquire is 22 acres, the adjoining piece of 19 acres would still be able to be developed to the level of 10 houses. The city would also receive a donation of approx. $2 million (the difference between the values of the properties involved) that could then be used by the city as matching money for state and federal grants.

For all of this, Mr. Brisbane would receive: 152 acres of timberland south and east of the Plantation Rifle Range near the Lake Samish freeway exit, 40 acres bound by Samish Way, Governor Road and 48th Street across from Lake Padden Park, The Levin’s building on Chestnut, the Elks building on Cornwall, the parking lot on Railroad where the Farmers’ Market has been, and $2 million of tax credits.

[…]

Is this proposed swap a good deal for the city? When we look at appraisal values and “bottom lines,” it could be argued that it is a good deal for all involved. When we look at the amount of Property going out of city ownership versus the amount coming into city ownership, however, there is certainly a great disparity . . .

The properties that would be turned over to Mr. Brisbane cannot be restored once they are developed . . . It seems foolish to be trading away land already owned by the city which is suitable for parks when we may wish we hadn’t traded the land at some point in the future because such property has become prohibitively expensive.

[…]

Of course it would be wonderful to connect the Interurban Trail and Arroyo Park to Larrabee State Park. It would also be wonderful to have an extensive trail system through the area. But at what price?