School District plans to demolish neighborhood before they get building approval

The School District is rushing its application to demolish homes on the newly acquired property near Renton High School.  They’re in such a hurry they have not even formally halted a six-year project that was about to build thirty new apartments on Airport Way in the “Dreamliner” project (where they now plan to move the baseball field).  The project board for the School District’s demolition plan is now posted next to the project board for the Dreamliner.

The Dreamliner Apartment Project has been in the formal approval and permitting process since 2018, and was soon to bring 30 desperately-needed new apartments to Airport Way. But the School District recently purchased this property under threat of eminent domain, and plans to include this property in their relocated baseball field.  They’ve also taken 32 houses and 8 businesses for this purpose.

Renton School District has only a rough concept for their new high school, and they still have to go to court to try to attempt to acquire the final ten properties they want.  They also have not begun any formal building plan process, or conducted an important archeological review, or consulted with the FAA about their planned new sports track in the Runway Protection  Zone, or initiated the public process required for the City of Renton to vacate South Tobin St, South Tillicum, and Shattuck Ave South.

But none of these important public process elements appear to be slowing the School District down in tearing down the checker-board of homes and businesses they’ve been able to acquire, in an effort that some people feel is intended to make it impossible to save the neighborhood while lowering the value of properties that the District has not purchased yet.

Even worse, the immediate tearing down of the homes before the project is formally approved is an end-run around the recently approved Houston Eminent Domain Fairness Act, which was passed unanimously this year by the legislature to assure that if property taken by a school district is not used for its intended purpose it will be sold back to the original owners.  How can it be sold back if it is destroyed?

By tearing down the homes they acquired under threat of eminent domain, like this one, they eliminate the possibility of having to sell them back if their plans are not approved

Big public projects like this require years of planning and approvals, and any number of steps could cause the project to go sideways.  The School District themselves acknowledge that the building won’t be complete for about five more years, and that’s IF everything goes according to plan.

Under these circumstances the right thing to have done would have been to leave the neighborhood intact until construction is near, by either buying options on the properties or purchasing them outright and renting them back to the owners.  Purchasing them and tearing them down immediately, before they have an approved plan, unreasonably forces the hands of decision-makers downstream in the process and violates the spirit of proper public planning.

Out to bid; Renton School District is inviting bids to tear down some homes in the neighborhood while others are still contesting the eminent domain taking through the courts

Renton Resident Angie Laulainen spoke at last night’s Renton City Council Meeting on this topic, and she provided me a copy of her speaking notes.  I’ve included then below the cut:

Renton Resident Angie Laulainen speaks to Renton City Council on May 12, 2025

“Looking through the City’s Comprehensive Plan, I was surprised to find a whole section entitled “Addressing Racially Disparate Impacts and Displacement” (p.46) which focused a lot about “long-standing racial disparities in Renton”. It is stated that historically marginalized households experience potential displacement risk. And then the document goes through remedies to address housing needs and racial disparities in order to help protect community members vulnerable to displacement or housing insecurity.

This relates directly to the residents whose homes are being taken by Renton School District near Renton High School. As you know, these are immigrants, low income, disabled and people of color living in this location. At a meeting with the school district last October, when these neighbors, from this marginalized community, inquired why their homes are being targeted instead of nearby Boeing properties, they were told that RSD could not afford to fight the wealthy Boeing’s lawyers. Basically, admitting that they know these neighbors cannot afford to fight, they were vulnerable, and their property would be easy prey.

Here’s some things from the City Comprehensive Plan:

Goal HHS-E: Implement policies and practices to address and undo racial disparities and exclusion in housing and promote equitable housing ownership and rental housing opportunities. Goal HHS-G: Mitigate displacement pressure caused by market forces by fostering homeownership opportunities and encouraging investments in existing housing. (p.52)

Policy ED-2: Support and develop measures to reduce displacement of existing businesses in Renton. (p.55)

Policy HHS-12: Expand anti-displacement strategies in collaboration with residents and community organizations.

Renton City Council has a Housing Action Plan which was funded by a grant from the Washington State Department of Commerce, which was written to address six questions, the last being “How do we prevent our current residents from being displaced by future development?”

The City met with RSD way back in May 2023, and approved the plan to bulldoze homes. You have taken an active role in supporting that plan, by giving approval to a plan that the voters did not approve. The City gave advice about vacationing a street where neighbors currently resided, condemning homes currently owned by neighbors, and including plans of baseball fields over existing homes.

Even now, the School District has been submitting SEPA reviews before the public sees any Land Use application. There are no Land Use Applications on the City website, but I’ve just learned that several SEPA reviews have already gone through. I hadn’t seen any signs posted at the site until just this week, and that sign is confusing. It is posted right next to a sign notifying about the Dreamliner project, a project which shows on the City Website as an active project and approved. Yet there is NO information about the RSD Land Use for their High School expansion, and apparently they are already going through the process without public involvement.

So not only have you enabled them from the beginning, targeting a vulnerable neighborhood admittedly cheaper than other options such as approaching the neighboring Boeing lots, and now the Public is being kept out of the loop on the Land Use process.

You are taking an active role to support the destruction of this neighborhood when you could have been the ones to save the homes.

City actions: Approval of the plan in the Pre-application meeting in May 2023, potentially vacationing two city streets, approving changing the zoning to remove residential housing, giving all the permits to destroy useable homes, not supporting residents to help avoid displacement of businesses and residents as suggested in the Housing Action Plan, not involving Renton Citizens in the Land use process by ommission on the City Website and confusingly keeping old projects posted as active as well as leaving up signage of inactive projects in the location. Please see attached photo of confusing signage.

I would request that the RHS Expansion project be put on hold”