Fight For Leschi Street Ends Will Move To Courts

Going east from Rainier Valley, South Charles Street cuts past Judkins Park and through the heart of Leschi, eventually cresting a hill before descending to water level. At the end of the road is a fence, and on the other side of the fence is Lake Washington.

The fence is locked.

To the homeowner who built it, and who wants to keep people out, the fence is a solution. To nearby residents who claim that South Charles Street is a public right of way, and who want access to the lake, the fence represents the problem. What's taking place here is a good, old-fashioned turf war:

On one side are hillside people, mainly middle-class residents of the Leschi neighborhood, who have plans to turn four waterfront street ends - South King, Dearborn, Charles and Norman streets - into "public viewing areas": what they call the "String of Pearls" project. This side claims to represent nearly 400 households.

On the other side are mainly shore-dwellers, some of whom live in million-dollar houses along Lakeside Avenue South, and who through the decades have come to view the street ends as their own. This group has filed a lawsuit in King County Superior Court to stop the String of Pearls project. Among the 22 plaintiffs are some rich and influential folks: Arthur ("OH BOY! Oberto") Oberto, attorney Lem Howell, and Peter Nordstrom, of the department-store family.

The shore-dwellers say they fear the "viewing areas" would actually be mini-parks that will attract the usual urban-park problems of vandalism, noise, drinking, drug-dealing and worse.

"Years ago, people could poke their head out the window to anybody passing by and say, `Hey, what are you up to?' " said Dorothy Oberto. "Now you wouldn't think of doing that. People carry guns. They'll shoot you. This is what we're afraid of."

At stake is not just the future of the four street ends in Leschi, but five other street ends to the south, in the Mount Baker community, which has publicly endorsed the String of Pearls project and is closely monitoring how the conflict unfolds.

In the long run, what happens in Leschi could also affect the fate of the estimated 130 unused street ends throughout Seattle. The Department of Parks and Recreation is already studying the possible development of 80 of those street ends. City officials hope to come up with guidelines early next year that would pre-empt the kind of neighbor-vs.-neighbor conflict taking place in Leschi.

Dean Kentala, a bespectacled, mild-mannered middle-school teacher who lives one block up the hill from the lake, thought up the idea of opening the street ends 15 years ago, when, while perusing city maps, he discovered to his surprise that the street ends were public property.

"I ran into a brick wall," he says of his attempt to get the city to open the street ends back then. "The brick wall was city bureaucracy."

The idea went into hibernation for a dozen or so years. Then, two years ago, it was revived by Kentala through the Leschi Improvement Council, a neighborhood group.

The purpose of the viewing areas, according to Kentala, is simple: to give neighborhood residents, who frequently walk or jog or bicycle through the area, a small place to rest and enjoy the view of Lake Washington. The tiny street ends - either 40 feet or 70 feet wide, depending on whose set of boundaries you use - would not be destination spots for outsiders, Kentala insists, noting that they are mere patches of ground along the lake's 57-mile shoreline. They would not be intended for boat launching or swimming.

The street ends today are blocked by laurel hedges, blackberry bushes and locked fences topped with barbed wire. In some cases they are occupied by small buildings, such as a greenhouse or shed. If the project goes through, all such additions would be cleared from the sites and replaced by three things: a lawn, a bench and a sign indicating a public viewing area. The hillside people, specifically the Leschi Improvement Council, would be responsible for maintaining the areas.

City officials this time have seemed more receptive to the project, giving it a green light through the first stages of the permit process. The hillside people rejoiced; the shore-dwellers sued.

"There must be gold in these street ends. There must be oil here," says an exasperated Tricia Evans, a shore-dweller and one of the plaintiffs. She and the other shore-dwellers belong to a group called the Lakeside Avenue South Association, which is also a plaintiff. While some members of the association are upper-crust, many are like Evans, a teacher at South Seattle Community College who happened to buy her waterfront home at the right time for the right price.

Who would want to go to such parks, Evans asks. "It would be like setting up a lawn chair in someone's driveway. And for the people who live in the homes, who would want a park five feet from their bedroom window?"

Evans says the homeowners have taken care of the street ends for decades, and sometimes have built on them, with the city's approval. The city Engineering Department, in charge of all street rights of way, permits property owners to fix up and maintain unused street ends because it saves the city money.

Ultimately, however, public uses take precedence over any private interests, said Kirk Jones of the Engineering Department, meaning that any group that makes a proposal for public use will get a city hearing.

This is why the city of Seattle has been named as a defendant in the suit, along with Kentala, activist John Barber, the Leschi Improvement Council and the council president, Karen Daubert.

Evans says that while the hillside people try to paint the shore-dwellers as a rich, powerful and exclusionist group, it's actually the hillside people who have the power in this conflict. They have City Hall on their side, Evans says. "And what we're doing is fighting City Hall."