Open Space Still Prospect For Mansion Plan -- Appraiser To See Wurdemann Site

-- LAKE FOREST PARK

Despite development plans for the Wurdemann estate, plans for using part of the property as open space remain alive in Lake Forest Park, according to a city official.

City administrator Ruth Muller said the city has hired a Kirkland property appraiser to prepare appraisals of the estate. Lake Forest Park could use those figures - which could be ready by the middle of the month - in negotiating to acquire a portion of it with money from a King County open-space bond issue approved by voters last November.

Nearly $425,000 was set aside in that bond issue for purchasing a portion of the Wurdemann estate, a four-acre property and 75-year-old mansion at Northeast Ballinger Way and Bothell Way Northeast.

However, the development plans recently announced for the estate do complicate the issue.

Olympic Properties, a real-estate brokerage firm which purchased the estate in September, wants to divide the property into four lots, which it plans to sell.

Two lots would be about 18,000 square feet each, and be used for single-family homes; another, holding the mansion, would be about 25,000 square feet and the fourth would be two acres.

Sunrise Retirement Homes of Oakton, Va., is proposing to construct a 55-unit, three-story ``assisted living facility'' on the largest lot. An application for a conditional use permit for that proposal is being considered by the city Planning Commission. The commission

has already taken testimony from proponents, and will hear comments opposing the plan at a public hearing scheduled for 7:30 p.m., Feb. 14 in the City Hall chambers.

Meanwhile, about 70 residents have signed a petition opposing any rezoning or granting of conditional use permit to the Wurdemann property.

``Our wish, as a community, is to have it remain single family dwellings or open space,'' the petition reads.

But the retirement home proposal wouldn't prevent Lake Forest Park from having its open space, said William Shields, co-owner of Sunrise's partner, Shields/Macek Inc.

Only a maximum of 40 percent of the two-acre lot will be covered by impervious surface, including the 20-vehicle parking lot, he said. The rest of the site will be yard which could be designated public open space, he said.

``We have no intention of expanding or using the front area. We just want it as a yard anyway,'' he said at a Jan. 24 public hearing. ``We would propose that we have a regular open space along the front of the property.''

Shields couldn't commit himself to any definite arrangements, because he hasn't discussed the conditions applying to county open space designation.

Gene Duvernoy, manager of the King County Office of Open Space, said that in any open space bond purchase, the local municipality - in this case, the city of Lake Forest Park - would hold title to the property and be responsible for maintaining it.

And Duvernoy said efforts to acquire open space parcels designated in the ballot measure will continue unless there is no significant amount of land available for open space on that piece of property.

The county hopes to begin selling bonds to raise the necessary money in April, he said.

Olympic Properties will try to accommodate the city ``as long as we still come out whole . . . if they can come up with the money,'' said Jim Braun, the company's president.

In fact, the current short plat was designed with the city's open-space interests in mind, he said.

``That's why we've laid it out that way,'' Braun said, ``so the front can be designed for open space.''