Following up on last week’s City Council briefing on the potential costs of White Center/North Highline annexation, the Regional Development and Sustainability Committee took a closer look today. It was the first step toward deciding whether to seek an annexation vote this fall – to ask the 20,000 residents of the potential annexation area whether they want to become part of Seattle or not. The state Growth Management Act says urban services need to be delivered by cities, so unincorporated urban areas like this one have to either become part of a city, or create their own; the latter is considered unlikely, so the decision for WC is ultimately: Seattle or Burien? Under terms of a never-finalized agreement that both cities are nonetheless currently honoring, Seattle has dibs till the end of this year. For an annexation to happen this fall, a process including the state/county Boundary Review 
Board has to be triggered this spring, so the big decision for this committee will come at its next meeting March 18th. You can watch Seattle Channel video of this afternoon’s meeting (public comment 2:30 in, the full agenda item at 42:30, with an unrelated urban-forestry report inbetween) by going here; we also live-chronicled meeting highlights on partner site White Center Now. (Screen-grab images: Above left, Seattle annexation supporter Kathi Wheeler; above right, Burien annexation supporter Gill Loring.)
P.S. A commenter asks about the boundaries of the proposed annexation area; here’s a King County map showing the zone under discussion, known as “Area Y.”
| 10 COMMENTS