We are a group of neighbors, parents, dog walkers, soccer players and concerned citizens living in the vicinity of Cedarbrook Elementary School. We have joined together to work with the Shoreline School District to find an alternative to the proposed sale of the Cedarbrook property to a developer. Instead, we seek to develop this property as a Community Park.
Currently, the Shoreline School Board has declared the Cedarbrook property "surplus" and is proposing to sell the land to the highest bidder.
The Cedarbrook property is the only open green space within walking distance of our entire area. It is heavily used by local families as a play area for young children, sports fields for local soccer teams, space to walk dogs, and just as a place to get away from it all. This needs to be preserved as park space for our community, not more housing.
The entire property is approximately 11 acres. About 2/3 of the site is made up of open field, wetlands, streams and habitat. The remaining 1/3 consists of existing buildings and paved parking area.
The entire property is zoned R-6, which allows 6 lots per acre. However, much of the property consists of streams and wetlands (and associated buffers) and is not developable (see below for more on this).
The future land use designation (or Comprehensive Plan designation) is "Special Study Area." Per the City of Shoreline's adopted Comprehensive Plan, such a designation requires that the property be analyzed to determine the most appropriate long-range use. No such analysis has occurred for the Cedarbrook property; the Coalition intends to initiate this analysis to produce a long-range vision for Cedarbrook as a public park.
Yes, absolutely. The Cedarbrook property functions as a natural surface water drainage system consisting of wetlands and both above and underground streams. Whisper Creek, a natural fish bearing surface creek, forms the northern border of the property; this creek is flanked by forested wetlands that extend into the Cedarbrook property. Additionally, the existing playfield is bisected by an underground stream that was rerouted into an undersized pipe that extends northward across the field and discharges into Whisper Creek.
The land offers natural habitat for a variety of local flora and fauna. Any residential development would result in habitat destruction, radically decreased permeable surface area, disruption to the natural drainage, exasperating an already existing local flooding problem and negatively impacting Whisper Creek.
In addition to the severe environmental impact, the loss of the open space and park area would negatively impact our local quality of life, further decrease property values and result in higher traffic volumes on roadways that are currently unsafe for pedestrians. Additionally, the inadequate infrastructure in this area would be significantly stressed by any substantial development of this property.
Right now, we are in the exploratory phase. We are researching options for site development and funding that may be available. Our first desire is to preserve all of the Cedarbrook property as a Community Park, and perhaps, utilize some of the buildings as a Community Center. This will require working with the School Board and local jurisdictions (The City of Shoreline and The City of Lake Forest Park) to develop an alternate plan.
We are taking several forms of action:
Join us in expressing your desire to make this dream a reality. Write the School Board, join us at School Board meetings, contact us via email or phone (see Contacts) and come to one of our general meetings, donate skills or resources to help us explore alternate funding sources. We are all in this together.
You can email us at savecedarbrook@aol.com, or call us and leave a message at (206)850-6224. Someone will return your call as soon as possible.