Holdouts Haunt Ghost Town -- Homeowners Reject Port's Buyout Offer Near Sea-Tac Airport

SEATAC - Naming a city after an airport has turned out to be eerily prophetic.

House by house, block by block, people are packing up and heading out. Like passengers with a one-way ticket, they will not be coming back. The homes they leave behind are boarded shut, a plywood ghetto.

Gone are the barking dogs, the crying children, the animated conversations across the rose bushes. There are mailboxes, but no mail. Gardens have gone to mud.

The neighborhood is giving way to an airport.

On South 146th and 25th Avenue South, just east of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, it's quiet these days, save for the jets that roar by with regularity, a jet-powered clock reminding Clarence and Esther Habbestad that time is running out.

The Habbestads have lived here 32 years. Clarence, 58, has worked for The Boeing Co. 40 years. The Geving family across the street has lived here 26 years. Gordon Geving, 51, has driven a truck for the Bon Marche for two decades. These are folks not big on change.

But they do live in a buyout zone. The Port of Seattle, using federal money, began buying up houses in this 12-block, L-shaped neighborhood last year after determining that increased airport traffic made it too noisy to live here anymore.

When the Habbestads moved in, there were trees around the airport runway, creating a buffer for the 81,000 planes a year taking off and landing on a single runway. Plane traffic has since

quadrupled and the trees long ago gave way to a second runway.

In the past 15 years, the port has purchased 1,265 houses in strips and patches primarily north and south of the airport, and the buyouts are now winding down. Many houses are now vacant lots; many sit on blocks, poised for a move to a less noisy neighborhood. Some await the bulldozer; still others remain occupied until the residents complete their moving arrangements.

Now, there's a proposal to enlarge Sea-Tac Airport by adding a third runway, which would mean the purchase of 230 more houses. The hotly contested proposal also calls for commercial airlines to use Paine Field in Everett. Public hearings on the issue ended last week, and the port is expected to decide sometime this spring whether to approve the proposed expansion.

APPRAISALS CHALLENGED

The Habbestads and the Gevings are among five families in their neighborhood and a dozen families throughout the buyout zone who are challenging the port's appraisals. They'd rather not leave the place they have spent the better half of their lives.

The Habbestads raised three boys in this house. They celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary here, and they hold the annual family reunion here. They added a dining room and sewing room, put in thermal-pane windows and converted the entryway into an enlarged living room, which has a view of the Olympic Mountains and Sea-Tac's east runway.

The Habbestads say they've learned to live with the noise - the shaking chandelier, the rattling dishes and the nails that pop out of the house's exterior every four or five years. If there's a television program Esther doesn't want to miss, she'll watch with the remote control in her hand, ready to kick up the volume at a second's notice.

The Habbestads and Gevings don't think the port is offering them enough money.

Clarence Habbestad was offered $156,000 for his house, plus closing and moving costs, and $2,900 more to accommodate for fluctuations in the housing market. He hired an appraiser, who valued his house at $178,000. The port reviewed Habbestad's appraisal and disagreed, said port official Pat Proulx.

"They can afford $10,000 couches, but can't pay me what my house is worth. They're getting me to buy two of their couches for them," said Habbestad, referring to the retail cost of the port's recent bid to purchase designer furnishings. Under public pressure, the port opted for less expensive pieces.

Geving said he has been offered $30,000 less than his private appraisal.

Homeowners are not allowed to see appraisals until after a settlement is reached, so as not to compromise any case that may go to court, said Proulx.

Port officials say many people were happy to escape the noise and felt they got a good price. In fact, the overwhelming number moved without protest.

"I've gotten a number of calls back from people over the years who feel they were treated fairly, who didn't realize until they got away from it how much the noise bothered them," Proulx said.

A FRUSTRATING PROCESS

Others, like the Habbestads, feel manipulated. "Progress is one thing, but I feel like we're being controlled," Esther Habbestad said.

Proulx said it can be frustrating and she empathizes with the Habbestads. "Their house is definitely superior to others in the neighborhood," she said. "They've designed it to fit their needs, and those are the hardest ones."

The couple's case is now with the port's legal division. If the two cannot agree, the port can condemn the property and the case goes to court.

It likely won't come to that. The Habbestads plan to build a new house near Federal Way. Although they didn't plan on taking on a mortgage at this stage in their lives, they are resigned to the move.

Geving is, too. But thus far, he has made no plans to move.

"We're not fighters," Geving said. "We're just gentle, ordinary people. There's no amount of money that will replace all the memories you have. But we want fair market value for our homes."