Sammamish hands over streets to a neighborhood, 135 years later

When the first official map of Inglewood was drawn, Seattle was still smoldering and Washington wasn’t yet a state.

It was July 1889, mere weeks after the Great Seattle Fire decimated the fledgling city, and just months before Washington Territory would become the nation’s 42nd state. The notarized plat map of Inglewood – now a neighborhood of Sammamish – envisioned the orderly grid of a city perched on the steep hills hugging the eastern shore of Lake Sammamish.

The streets were named, property lines squared and the little neighborhood grew, bit by bit, over the next 135 years. But earlier this year, a Sammamish employee was reviewing a building permit and uncovered a quirk in Inglewood’s past: about 4 miles of roads were never formally opened to the public, and consequently the city says it has been illegally been taking care of the streets with public funds for decades.

Sammamish city officials say – now reluctantly, following an eruptive City Council meeting against the plan – the roads are no longer its problem. Instead, they’re the responsibility of about 400 adjacent property owners.

The city’s decision, based on a state land use law first passed in 1890 and a very old plat map, means the city will no longer perform street sweeping, plowing during snow and ice, pothole repair, ditch maintenance, parking enforcement and more.

“It’s absurd,” said Scott Cushing, who has lived in Inglewood since 1994, when he and his family moved into the home he built himself. “To come back 130 years later – they’d be stupid to fight a losing battle” against an organized and perturbed electorate over longstanding city services.

Cushing, along with about 100 people, turned up to a June 3 City Council meeting to protest the city’s decision. Many of the neighborhood’s residents described their reaction to the news as wavering between outright confusion over the historic basis of the decision, and unbridled anger about the potential costs and logistics of forming a homeowner association to take on the erstwhile municipal services.

Mayor Karen Howe said she got the message, loud and clear. The city has pushed back the date the streets will revert to private hands, from June 30 to July 31, while the legal team reviews options.

“We got blasted, and deservedly,” Howe said. “We heard the pain and the anguish that we actually caused, and it just rocked us. … We messed up. This isn’t the best us. We can do so much better.”

The issue arose after the developer of a cluster of several new single-family homes applied for a building permit. In the course of reviewing the application, city officials discovered that the Inglewood’s residents missed the window to hand off ownership of the streets, which have been Sammamish’s responsibility since taking them over from King County when it incorporated in 1999.

According to a city webpage about the decision, which was taken down last week, the “five-year window started in 1890 when the plat was approved. If the streets were not open for public use in the that five-year window (i.e., 1890-1895) the streets remain private.”

A HistoryLink.org entry on Inglewood suggests why that didn’t happen: no one really lived in the “plat without a town. No town was ever built there.”

But as cars and pavement more easily connected the far-flung Inglewood to the many other communities in the Seattle metro area, things changed. Today, the grid put down all those years ago is partially complete, creating a mazelike neighborhood with homes big and small, towering trees and no sidewalks. With lake views peeking between the trees, it’s easy to see the draw of the bucolic bastion.

In a letter sent to Inglewood residents around Memorial Day, the city said it had “no choice” but to abandon the streets due to the state’s Non-User Statute, and suggested that the neighborhood form a homeowner association to maintain services, at unknown costs.

At the council meeting, and in a Q&A section on the now defunct webpage, Inglewood residents erupted.

Many demanded a cut in their property tax bill, considering the diminished municipal services.

Property taxes won’t be changed, city officials said, since “other neighborhoods with private streets already maintain their own roads while being assessed the same property tax levy as the rest of the City.” At just under 4 miles, Inglewood’s roads represent a fraction of the 415 lane miles the city’s Division of Public Works maintains.

Cushing, who estimated his annual property tax bill somewhere north of $10,000, derided the response.

“They don’t want to spend our money in our neighborhood,” he said. “They just want to take it.”

Chris Hagenbuch, who was weeding his yard on a recent morning, said he was also concerned with his taxes, as well as the neighborhood’s safety.

He mentioned the “bomb cyclone” that struck the region in November, and the devastation it left in Inglewood’s forested enclave. Roads were blocked for days, making him wonder how emergency services would get to the neighborhood if they were needed.

“We’re paying the tax, the city is responsible for the safety of the neighborhood,” Hagenbuch said. “Either give us a huge discount, or continue clearing the roads.”

The city said the neighborhood will continue to be served by emergency services, school buses, mail carriers, Puget Sound Energy and Republic Services, which picks up garbage, yard waste and recycling.

Like others, Hagenbuch wondered if there might be more to the story than some archaic laws.

Patrick Makin, who was walking with a handful of neighbors on a regular loop of the neighborhood, said he’s lived in Inglewood 50 years, and “there’s never been a question about it. Why now?”

Though the city said the decision has nothing to do with city finances, many Inglewood residents pointed to the bomb cyclone, and the millions it cost to remove the downed trees blocking the roads.

Others speculate that a developer is trying to build a gated community.

For her part, Howe, the mayor, said she and her fellow council members have “owned” the mistake and apologized, and are searching for a solution to keep the roads public. She said the city is aware of other cities that have gone through a similar issue, but she said none have found a good solution.

Howe suggested that – if Inglewood’s roads are continued to be maintained – the city could be sued by residents who currently live on private streets with no city service, forcing the city to maintain their roads.

“It does open us up to legal risk, certainly,” Howe said. “Now we’re taking that deep breath and step back. OK, we’re breaking the law, but what else can we do?”

Howe said she’s “put a tremendous amount of pressure and encouragement to our legal team” to find a solution, and said she hoped they would come up with something before the end of July.

One surefire solution, the city said on its now-removed webpage, is “evidence that the streets in Inglewood had been formally opened between 1890-1895 for public use (i.e., as a footpath for the public to traverse).”

For many residents, that evidence is on the plat map itself, on the city’s website.

There, in cursive, on a map filed with the King County auditor at 11:17 a.m. on July 30, 1889, it reads: “the use of the public forever all streets platted hereon.”

Howe, however, said the language is not legally binding.

“This is the part where the resident says, ‘What the hell?’” Howe said. “We are all taken aback. This is all very weird. It is a bizarre circumstance.”