The Town of La Conner’s easement dilemma

To expand on the Maple Avenue property scorecard in last week’s Weekly News, for the record:

1. La Conner buys the Maple Avenue ballfield property from the Hedlin family.

2. La Conner creates a restrictive covenant protecting for the public “in perpetuity” 24,000 square feet.

3. La Conner creates three easements; one crosses the park parcel.

4. La Conner sells the remaining ballfield property, and the easements, to Landed Gentry.

5. As Maple Field, developer Landed Gentry presents an agreement for partial extinguishment of the park-crossing easement to council July 13.

Additional background: in May 2020 the town and the Hedlins signed an option agreement for the town to purchase the property. In February 2021 the town signed a purchase agreement with Landed Gentry that included creation of an easement across the park property for ingress and egress and the right to utilize the easement.

So, the town government is in a pickle. One minute it filed documents protecting the park for open space. In a latter minute it sold the rest of the property with a commitment to pave part of the park and allow new homeowners access through the paved area.

There are more complications, of course: the one restriction Landed Gentry agreed to was a maximum home size of “1,700 square feet of living area, exclusive of utility, mechanical and garage areas.”

Gentry’s easement release document before council has the conditions of the town agreeing to a new sizing of the lots and excluding interior areas from the 1,700 square foot measurement of the newly proposed designs. The town is to then agree that “the livable square footage is under 1,700 square feet.” These are terms different from the signed purchase agreement.

More, instead of 10 same-sized lots, the town is to approve a subdivision design with four big lots (70’ x 100’) on Maple Avenue.

Council is asked to approve that “the Proposed Homes meet the Square Footage Limitation as set forth in the terms and conditions of the Purchase Agreement.” Council is to agree to not challenge the home sizes. If the town rejects too-big home plans, “Maple Field will be entitled to full reinstatement of Easement C.” This is in the document before council.

This partial extinguishment of the easement names the park owned by the town as the “burdened property” and terms Maple Field the “benefitted property” for owning the property that gained the easement originally.

The town indeed burdened itself by signing contradictory documents to save land for a park and then granting an easement for pavement across that park. It is pushed by a developer to allow bigger, thus more expensive, homes in a subdivision that was never going to offer moderate, much less affordable-priced homes despite rhetoric from town officials.

No one has clamored for $700,000 homes on Maple Avenue but that is where Maple Field is heading. If Landed Gentry is selling these models for $600,000 in Sedro-Woolley, just how high a premium will people pay for living in La Conner?

The town moves quickly on the development front while it has not given satisfactory answers to its constituents whose only demand has been that land set aside for the public forever – in perpetuity – not be paved.

Letters and meetings and calls for answers have not advanced the cause of the petitioners. They have had letters drawn up by a lawyer signed by dozens of people, to no avail. Town government is moving quickly when a developer-presented agreement is put before them. What will residents do if they see council supporting expensive homes on Maple Avenue while their own petitioning has gone unheeded?