Residents of the Haller Lake neighborhood in North
Seattle are
fuming over a plan by Seattle Public Schools (SPS) to remove 68 trees
on Ingraham High School’s campus
to make way for 12 new classrooms. Haller Lake residents say SPS is
circumventing the city’s development process and setting a dangerous
precedent for developers in Seattle.
In December, the school district announced plans to remove a large
grove of trees from the northwest corner of Ingraham’s campus to make
way for a badly needed classroom expansion at the crowded high school.
Neighbors protested the tree-removal plan at several planning meetings
this winter and had hoped the city’s Department of Planning and
Development (DPD) would refuse the district’s request for permits to
remove the trees.
But on August 8, Haller Lake residents received certified letters
from SPS, informing them that it had rescinded its permit
applications—the district believes that while it needs permits to
build new classrooms, it doesn’t need city permission to remove the
trees—and planned to begin logging sometime in the next week.
Haller Lake residents like Steve Zemke immediately leaped into
action, filing a lawsuit against Seattle Public Schools in the hopes of
holding the district’s bulldozers at bay.
“They decided they can’t win the process and are cutting the public
out of it,” says Zemke, who lives two blocks from Ingraham. “They’re
cutting down a parklike area that’s been used by the community for
years.”
Zemke, a longtime political activist, has taken on a leadership role
in Haller Lake’s battle against SPS, and he says if the city allows SPS
to go ahead with the tree removal, it will send a message to other
developers that they can skirt the city permitting process without
consequence. “If the school district can get away with it,” Zemke says,
“how many other developers are going to wake up and [do the same
thing]?”
Zemke and his neighbors aren’t the only ones fuming over the school
district’s plan; Mayor Greg Nickels’s office has gotten involved. “The
city is not happy with the school district,” says Nickels’s spokesman
Alex Fryer. “To submit an application and withdraw it… is just not
the way anyone should do business.” Fryer says the city will “apply
some political and moral pressure” and explore legal means of halting
the district’s plan. “It certainly looks like an act of bad faith,”
Fryer says.
While the Haller Lake residents and the city are crying foul over
the district’s plan, SPS spokesman David Tucker says the district
provided adequate public process and is moving forward with the tree
removal for the safety of students. “There’s been a public process all
along,” he says. “We looked at all the best possible designs for the
school. This design is the most academically and environmentally
sound.” Tucker says SPS will plant three trees for every one removed,
which could add roughly 200 more trees to the school’s campus.
