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Renton resident Sarah Becker presented to Renton City Council last night regarding the eminent domain takings around Renton High School. Her notes are attached below.
Renton School Officials have repeatedly said that Renton High School is built on “a small parcel of land” and should have 30-40 acres to be competitive with other high schools. But Renton resident Sarah Becker put together data showing Renton High has more property than many high schools in our region, especially when taking into account the nearby 17-acre Renton Memorial Stadium that is available for Renton High use.
She presented the data at last night’s Renton City Council Meetings, and asked the City Council to help stop the destruction of 32 homes and eight businesses being taken by Renton School District by threat of eminent domain.
While Renton Council did not initiate the eminent domain takings, the Council arguably has the power to stop the takings because the plan requires the Council to give the school district three public streets. If Council said “no” to the street taking, the District’s plan could not go forward (the School District can’t take city-owned property by eminent domain). And in addition to saving 32 homes and 8 businesses, Council has good reason to keep these streets. South Tobin Street is an important alternative to Airport Way in a high traffic area constrained geographically by Renton High School, Renton Airport and Lake Washington. Without South Tobin, any disruption to Airport Way could gridlock Renton.
Ms. Becker also put together a listing of all the affected properties purchased so far under threat of eminent domain, and noted that the cost has exceeded 38 million dollars even before the School District has acquired the ten most-contested properties; the takings of these ten properties have now been turned over to the School District’s pricey outside law firm, who is initiating a potentially costly legal fight with the owners of the land. If the District wins these court fights, this land will end up costing taxpayers 10-20 million more.
If Renton ultimately submits to giving up streets, the School District should pay Renton for the land. The streets belong to City of Renton taxpayers, and the School District has larger geographic boundaries extending into Newcastle, Kent, Tukwila and King County. City of Renton voters have never agreed to donate this property to the larger school district. The fair market value of the land under these streets is probably another ten million dollars or more.
All told, the district has over 38 million invested with potentially as much as another 20-30 million to pay out to acquire land before they even break ground. The purchases will allow them to move the ball fields a few hundred yards east, where they might be allowed to have lights on them– but 100 or so residents and eight businesses will have lost their homes. As I showed in a previous entry, this is likely the most expensive high school baseball complex ever built.
Here are Ms. Becker’s charts:
Acreage data summarized by Renton resident Sarah Becker and presented to Renton City Council
Sales data of properties around Renton High School summarized by Renton resident Sarah Becker
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