SPOKANE, Wash. – Despite pleas from and the , Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has agreed to a land exchange involving 200 acres off US-195 for 4 acres in Bellingham.
The 200-acre area is part of the Common School Trust, which requires the land to generate revenue for K-12 education. However, the DNR stated that the land is not only not producing revenue, but actually costs money to upkeep.
“Our state lands can have a variety of revenue generation tools, timber sales being one of them or for commercial leases,” Ryan Rodruck with DNR explained. “This property is in what is zoned as residential, it was not producing timber revenue and was not suitable for a commercial lease.”
The land is set to be transferred to Blue Fern Development to create new homes in the Grandview Thorpe neighborhood. However, the transfer will not be finalized until July 15, 2025, following a six-month delay request Spokane City Council voted 5-2 on in December.
Concerns have been raised about the impact on natural beauty and local infrastructure. In May, Spokane City Council placed a one-year development moratorium in the area due to concerns about increased wildfire and traffic fatality risks. Additionally, some residents say they use the area for nature activities like bird-watching.
“These are public lands and so I think we need to have a larger discussion about what the process is for this going forward and DNR’s role with a lot of these private transfers where the residents of Spokane and Eastern Washington have come to expect, these are public lands,” Dillon said.
The DNR plans to acquire a 4-acre property in Bellingham, currently leased to a grocery store, which is expected to generate $13 million for schools over the next 15 years, along with an immediate $5 million at the time of the transfer. Rodruck emphasized, “That will significantly increase funds in the trust and schools will be the beneficiary.”
Dillon remains hopeful that other options are still possible, saying, “There’s still some different options on the table so that will require working with the developer now that the exchange has been approved but conservation is something that’s certainly still on the table and there’s different mechanisms for that.”
