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But on August 8, Haller Lake residents received certified letters from SPS, informing them that it had rescinded its permit applicationsâthe district believes that while it needs permits to build new classrooms, it doesn't need city permission to remove the treesâand 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. 
