ACTION NEEDED
NOW
Sign the Consensus HERE
Thank You Consensus Signers!
As of September 24, 2,106 community members have signed the Community Forest Consensus. They include the public officials, organizations, and businesses listed below. See all public signers and read their comments HERE
Elected Officials
Washington State Senate
Senator Karen Keiser
City of SeaTac
Mayor Jake Simpson
Deputy Mayor Senayet Negusse
Councilmember Mohamed Egal
Councilmember Iris Guzman
Councilmember Peter Kwon
City of Normandy Park
Councilmember Earnest Thompson
City of Tukwila
Councilmember Kate Kruller
Organizations and Businesses
Allison Ostrer, Certified Public Interpreter
Back Alley Honey, LLC
Boulevard Park Community Action Network
Organizations and Businesses
Environment, Energy, and Land Use Caucus of the Combined 33rd and 34th District Democrats
… and over 2,000 other community members
What Are We Defending?
Thousands of people once lived on North SeaTac Park’s 200+ acres. By the 1990s, the Port of Seattle had used eminent domain to remove them, along with their homes, schools and businesses, for airport expansion. Area residents were told that this land would be a park to compensate them for severe cumulative airport impacts.
But over 30 acres of forested land inside North SeaTac Park are at risk from Port development.* And the Port additionally proposes in its Sustainable Airport Master Plan (SAMP) and Real Estate Strategic Plan, (RESP) to commercially develop an estimated 75+ acres of mostly tree-covered land near the park.
Public Health Seattle-King County has recommended increasing green space and tree canopy in this community to protect residents from airport pollution that is shortening lives. The Port’s proposed tree and green space destruction would be devastating for the area’s ecology and community livability, would harm public health, and would bean act of environmental injustice violating its own commitments to avoid sprawl and protect forested land.
Our community’s trees and park land are much too valuable to replace with cargo warehouses, parking lots, and receiving and distribution centers.
In an 8/9/22 Letter to the Editor, Port of Seattle Government Relations Manager Dave Kaplan stated that the Port is not considering development within North SeaTac Park.
However, North SeaTac Park is not secure from Port development. The entire park is zoned “aviation commercial”, 55 acres can be removed from park use at any time by the Port, and there is ample documentation of longstanding Port plans, or, in the terminology of the Port, “site specific considerations”, to develop that 55-acre parcel for “aviation supportive use.” Read more and view documentation HERE.
Vision
We envision North SeaTac Park and its surrounding forest restored and protected for the health, well-being and delight of the people and that people in all neighborhoods throughout our region can live within vibrant urban forests where tree-lined corridors connect with parks, forestland, and cool, green spaces to play, relax, and gather. This Consensus, with your support, can bring that vision closer to reality.
A Park for the People
The Port of Seattle “states the Park is the culmination of a long term and very open planning process to compensate the area’s residents for cumulative airport impacts. According to the Aviation Division, the Park is the best compatible use of a severely airport-impacted area".
Federal Aviation Administration Compliance Reviews of Airport Noise Land Use & Financial Operations 2016 p. 11.
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Land Acknowledgment
SeaTac International Airport and the surrounding community for many miles around it are on the ancestral lands and waters of the Salish people of the Duwamish, Green, White, Cedar, and Upper Puyallup rivers, including those who are now members of the Duwamish Tribe and the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. These tribes and their members have been stewarding these lands and waters since time immemorial. We honor with gratitude the land itself and the members, past and present, of these tribes.
