Update: Housing advocates pressure Port, Burien on Lora Lake Apartments

Pressure continued to build this week on the Port of Seattle and Burien as low-income housing advocates campaigned to save the Lora Lake Apartments from demolition.

Rev. Sandy Brown of the Church Council Of Greater Seattle conducted a "service of lamentation" on Monday to protest the pending demolition.

Nine protesters were arrested July 19 after they occupied a vacant unit at the apartments in Burien and refused to leave.

King County Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart said they were booked into the Regional Justice Center in Kent on charges of trespassing, a gross misdemeanor.

The short-lived occupation at Lora Lake was spearheaded by SHARE/WHEEL, a homeless-advocacy group.

According to Urquhart, 12 people walked onto the property at 15001 Des Moines Memorial Dr. without permission about 7:15 a.m. and took over a second-story apartment in a staged protest over the pending demolition of the affordable-housing complex.

Sheriff's deputies were called after the squatters refused requests to leave by a representative of the Allied Group Inc., the company that manages the property for the King County Housing Authority.

When deputies announced that anyone who did not leave would be arrested, Urquhart said two people climbed over a balcony, jumped to the ground, and walked away. A woman inside said the door was barricaded and she could not get out.

After additional warnings to the group, deputies forced their way into the apartment around 8:30 a.m. The woman who said she wanted out was allowed to leave.

The other nine trespassers were arrested. There were no injuries.

Last week the Port of Seattle, which owns the property, rejected an $18 million offer by King County to buy the 162 affordable apartments located there.

The Lora Lake complex is 900 feet west of the center line of the new third runway at Sea-Tac International Airport. The Port operates the airport.

Port officials noted that the city of Burien, which has jurisdiction over land-use laws affecting the property, does not want people living near the third runway.

"These are market-rate apartments that are located 900 feet from the center line of a major runway," said Linda Strout, the Port's deputy chief executive. "We respect Burien's decision, and we agree with that decision that that's not a suitable place for residential housing to be located."

Burien City Council members rejected earlier this month an offer from King County to let the Lora Lake Apartments remain standing in exchange for compensation to offset the financial loss it would incur by not redeveloping the area for commercial use.

Lora Lake is inside Burien's Northwest Redevelopment Area, which the city rezoned several years ago to encourage commercial development in the area impacted by Sea-Tac air traffic.

The Port, the city and the housing authority have since 1998 had a contractual agreement for the eventual removal of the apartments and redevelopment of the property. That agreement calls for the demolition of the apartments later this year.

But in March, housing authority officials reversed course and, citing an increased need for affordable housing in King County, insisted that Lora Lake not be torn down.

Burien officials noted in response that Burien has twice as much affordable and low-income housing within its city limits as does the rest of King County, and that economic development there is essential if the city is to generate revenue to pay for local services.

King County Executive Ron Sims threatened for a time to withhold funds already appropriated for a Transit-Oriented Development project in downtown Burien if the city proceeded with the demolition of Lora Lake, but later recanted.

Burien has presented the county with a counter-proposal to replace Lora Lake with affordable housing at a better, more convenient location within the city limits.

King County officials have said, however, that the $30 million required to build new apartments wouldn't be the best use of scarce dollars for affordable housing.