title
AN ORDINANCE approving the financing plan for the acquisition of property interests in the Eastside Rail Corridor.
body
STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. The Eastside Rail Corridor ("ERC"), formerly referred to as the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe ("BNSF") rail line corridor, is a forty-two-mile railroad corridor that extends south from the city of Snohomish in Snohomish county to the cities of Renton and Redmond in King County, passing through unincorporated King County and the cities of Woodinville, Kirkland, Bellevue, Renton and Redmond.
2. The ERC is a regional asset that through ongoing public ownership can be managed to support shared objectives of a vibrant, growing community.
3. The ERC is comprised of a contiguous set of parcels that together offer unique and significant opportunities that would be impossible to recreate if the parcels were disaggregated and sold off to private interests.
4. King County has developed, maintains and is seeking to further develop a regional trail system that provides an important mode of transportation and recreation opportunity for a diverse and growing population. Maintaining the ERC in contiguous public ownership offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to expand this regional trail system, encouraging vibrant, prosperous and sustainable communities and safeguarding and enhancing King County's natural resources and environment.
5. King County has developed, maintains and anticipates the need to expand its wastewater treatment system, which currently includes conveyance facilities that run within and cross the ERC.
6. The property interests in the ERC that are now held by King County, Puget Sound Energy, Sound Transit and the cities of Redmond and Kirkland are intended by these entities to implement the November 2009 memorandum of understanding vision to share the ERC for public transportation, trail and utility uses in a manner that allows each entity to achieve its purposes and attempts to avoid any frustrati...
Click here for full text