Tulalip Tribes agree to buy land from Everett

TULALIP RESERVATION - The Tulalip Tribes have agreed to pay the city of Everett $7.37 million for 906 acres on the reservation.

Everett bought the land from Unocal in 1990 for $2.4 million, intending to make it a disposal site for sludge from the city's sewage plant. That plan was dropped due to opposition from reservation residents.

The city dramatically increased the land's value last year by submitting development plans to Snohomish County for a pair of 18-hole golf courses surrounded by 390 homes.

Although the purchase price is based upon the land's development potential, the Tulalips plan to leave the land vacant, said John McCoy, the tribes' executive director of governmental affairs.

The County Council last year rezoned thousands of acres of reservation land owned by non-Indians to allow much less development than previously permitted. Under the new rules, only one home per 10 acres - and no golf courses - may be built in many areas of the reservation. The action was requested by the Tulalips to protect the quality of water feeding into the tribes' salmon hatchery.

Everett got around those development restrictions by submitting its proposal to the county shortly before the County Council acted, thus grandfathering in the proposed golf-course community under the old rules.

The city and Tulalips are still working on final sale terms, McCoy said.