Tales Of A Would-Be City -- Some Say They Like Briarwood Just The Way It Is, Thank You; Others Argue It'll Be Nothing Without The Benefits Of Incorporation

MAPLEWOOD HEIGHTS

DuWayne Spencer has a "YES! for BRIARWOOD" sign on the front lawn of his one-story cream-colored house because he likes things the way they are.

He says forming a city would keep his quiet neighborhood pretty much the same and fears that not incorporating would lead to higher taxes.

Sunny Sheffer, Spencer's neighbor across the street, likes the way things are, too. That's why she put a "NO BRIARWOOD" sign on the front lawn of her one-story cream-colored house: Staying in unincorporated King County would preserve her community's quality of life, she says, while forming a city would lead to higher taxes.

And so it goes around here. This 4-square-mile web of neighborhoods east of Renton might become the city of Briarwood next week. What most of the 9,000 residents in the area have in common - a love of a bucolic lifestyle and their desire to preserve it - is what's tearing them apart.

"This thing has gone off and struck neighbor against neighbor and street against street," says Tim Fultz, an area resident and clerk at the Hop In grocery on Southeast 128th Street. "I wish they had never proposed it."

But they did. In 1995, when Renton unsuccessfully tried to annex 400 acres of what would be the southern portion of Briarwood, residents upset by the prospect of joining Renton met to discuss their future.

Renton's attempt "was our wake-up call that the rules had changed, and our community was about to change," says Rod Dembowski, who heads Neighbors for Briarwood Incorporation.

A year earlier, the county declared the Briarwood area "urban" under the terms of the state Growth Management Act, an action that meant some growth was inevitable. Forming their own city, residents decided, was the only way to control the growth so it wouldn't destroy the community's residential, semirural character.

Opponents of incorporation said just the opposite: that cityhood would require them to provide more affordable housing, which would mean apartments, which would mean transient residents ruining the community's stability. Staying unincorporated, they argued, doesn't necessarily mean Renton will annex the area and spur development.

Apartments and semi-detached houses have sprouted like weeds in adjacent communities, but the Briarwood area has retained its half-acre lawns, its diverse and mostly modest homes, and open space.

There are little pink houses and white picket fences here. There are modular homes next to land where horses graze. Lawn ornaments abound, and streets are just as likely to be called dead ends as cul-de-sacs.

In the 30 years he's lived in the community, said Reggie Whitehurst, owner of Chuck's Donuts, "there have been a few more houses, but generally it's stayed the same."

Gesturing at his shop and the Hop In grocery next door, Whitehurst said he opposes incorporation partly because the two stores would constitute Briarwood's main business district. Those shops and a nursery are pretty much the only non-home-based businesses within the proposed city.

The small commercial presence is among the main reasons incorporation opponents say Briarwood wouldn't work. They say more businesses would be necessary, and they don't want a city full of strip malls.

They've cited a feasibility study released this fall by the state Boundary Review Board for King County as support for their claims.

Phillip K. Kushlan and Associates, the firm that prepared the study, noted "the extraordinarily low level of business activity" that would occur in Briarwood. Even with a boost from state funds reserved for cities with small commercial bases, Briarwood's $2.7 million annual budget would be barely enough to cover daily operating expenses, the report said.

In December, the review board - an administrative body that makes decisions on incorporations and annexations - recommended unanimously against Briarwood incorporation. Alda Wilkinson, executive secretary to the board, says she is not aware of any cities that have incorporated under these circumstances.

Still, incorporation opponents are touting the board's recommendation less these days. Dembowski's group found several errors in the study, such as the cost of a police contract and the amount of a cable-television franchise fee, that both the review board and Kushlan and Associates have acknowledged.

The board did not release a revised study, however, and their failure to do so has angered cityhood opponents.

"It would be helpful to all of us if we could point to the document and say the document is accurate," says Roger Paulsen, spokesman for Community Against Briarwood Incorporation. He says many voters now perceive the board's recommendation, which should serve as one of the strongest selling points for his group, as moot.

Wilkinson said the board released a memorandum noting the study's errors and updating them, but both sides of the issue have said that's not enough.

And both have tried to convince voters that their solution is the only chance at saving the character of the community.

Some say it's too late for that. Before this debate, "We were just a real quiet place and everyone got along," says the Hop In's Fultz.

"I don't think it could ever really go back to the way it was."