A nonprofit organization is proposing a partnership with Island County to permanently protect seven properties that are currently being leased from the state.
Ryan Elting of Whidbey Camano Land Trust discussed the proposal with Island County commissioners this week. He explained that the nonprofit proposes to secure all the funds for the properties, which are estimated to be valued at more than $4.2 million, at no cost to the county except for a modest amount of staff time.
The state Trust Land Transfer Program began in 1989, Elting said, as a way for the Department of Natural Resources to transfer state-owned properties with high conservation value to counties. Between 2001 and 2009, the state entered into long-term leases with Island County on seven properties.
Three of the properties are on 30-year leases. The Land Trust proposes to submit applications through the Trust Land Transfer Program. If the properties rank high enough and the legislature appropriates funds, the DNR will transfer them to Island County, according to the Land Trust.
The properties include the 170-acre Elger Bay forest land on Camano Island, which has only six years left on the lease. The land surrounds a school on Camano, is a popular spot for hiking and is the largest of the properties being leased.
The other two properties are 13.5 acres in Smugglers Cove and 11.5 acres at Strawberry Point. Both are shoreline properties with eroding feeder bluffs. They each have 12 years left on the leases.
The county designates the shoreline properties as critical habitat areas and salmon priority habitats.
“The properties’ feeder bluffs contribute important nutrients to the nearshore environments that sustain forage fish, juvenile salmonids and other species, as well as promote growth of eelgrass and kelp beds,” the Land Trust proposed letter of intent states. “The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife identifies Strawberry Point as part of a Marine Area of Critical Concern with dense summer and winter smelt spawning activity. Smuggler’s Cove is part of an important salmon nearshore corridor. Protecting these Properties is critical to provide for nesting raptors and other water-dependent birds, as they are some of the few remaining large, undeveloped and mature forested shoreline remaining on Whidbey Island.”
Four other properties are forested land originally on 50-year leases. Elting said the Land Trust proposes to work with DNR to buy out the leases on the properties. They are 20 acres on Wahl Road on South Whidbey, 40 acres at Skyline West near Langley, 39 acres at High Point near Langley and 40 acres near Swantown Lake near Oak Harbor. Elting said the Land Trust also wants to move forward with obtaining these properties this year.
“Now is the time to work with the DNR on the buyout of these properties because the properties will be deeply discounted in the appraisals due to 34 years remaining on the leases,” he said.
In addition, he said the DNR only works with certain counties each year, and Island County won’t get the opportunity to buy out the leases for another 12 or more years — when they will be much more expensive.
If the county or Land Trust doesn’t obtain the properties, the state will likely sell them to private buyers for possible development.
The goal of the proposal is to permanently protect the properties for their ecological value and for public benefit. Elting said the plan is to transfer the land to the county’s ownership. Then four or five of the properties would be transferred to the Land Trust, with the county holding the conservation easements held by the county. That way, about 99% of the value of the land will have been removed, but the county wouldn’t have the responsibility of managing most of the properties.
Commissioners Melanie Bacon and Janet St. Clair said they are supportive of the proposal. Commissioner Jill Johnson said she was concerned that continually protecting property from development creates scarcity of land for housing and drives up the cost.
Bacon, however, pointed out that most of the properties are within her District 1 area of South and Central Whidbey and she would definitely be in favor of increasing housing density in areas like Freeland in order to preserve the natural areas.
In the end, the commissioners agreed to move forward with approving the letter of intent on the first three properties. Elting said he hopes that progress on the buyout of the remaining properties will move forward later this year.
