Struggling to hold on to the small-town feel

By RUTH SCHUBERT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The road on the eastern edge of Lake Stevens curves gently around the Reserve Beach Club. On a hot summer day, swimmers jump off the private club's wooden docks and speed boats race across the sparkling lake with water-skiers in tow.

The 2-year-old club's stretch of waterfront is reserved for about 120 families in The Reserve housing development -- one of a half-dozen tracts of new homes spreading up the hills around Lake Stevens.

The wave of growth has caused some ripples of conflict in this fast-growing community.

On a wooden fence adjacent to the club hangs this sign: "We have lived here for 7 years now, and originally had concerns about this community beach development, as we thought it might bring problems such as extra traffic, parking problems, loud noise, and garbage. Our concerns have been realized. -- Mark and Monika"

In the past eight years, more than 2,300 people have moved to Lake Stevens -- a 67 percent increase in the city's population. They're lured by the beauty of the wood-fringed glacial lake, the proximity to mountains and sea, and the convenience of Everett.

In fact, Lake Stevens is one of the 10 fastest-growing cities in Washington state, according to a Post-Intelligencer analysis of population estimates from the state Office of Financial Management.

And while the city now has 5,740 residents, the urban growth boundary that encircles the lake includes more than 21,000 people. Between 1990 and 1997, Lake Stevens' urban growth area grew at a 6.2 percent rate, compared with 3.9 percent the previous decade.

Developers requested 1,000 building permits for new homes in and around Lake Stevens last year.

At the Reserve, three- and four-bedroom homes cost $160,000 to $190,000. The median price for homes in Lake Stevens was $139,450 in 1995, but many lakeside houses are valued at $500,000 to $1 million. While it's still possible to find farmhouses with blackberry-covered barns, many are quickly giving way to mushrooming subdivisions.

The developments are pulling in newcomers like Peggy Jones, a travel consultant who left an apartment in Bellevue for a three-bedroom, two-bath home a couple of blocks from the lake.

"I was driving around looking for a smaller community and went into Lake Stevens, and it just felt like home," says Jones. "I wanted a community I could get involved in."

Jones, 47, moved in mid-June and plans to work out of her home, connected to her Eastside office via computer. For Jones, Lake Stevens still has a small-town feeling.

"I found it on a Sunday afternoon drive, and I've loved the people I've met there," says Jones. "I feel the community really cares about their lifestyle, their kids."

Like much of Snohomish County, Lake Stevens is struggling to hold onto the small-town qualities residents cherish. They want to retain the intimacy of the community and re-create the main-street feel of downtown, which was lost as older buildings were torn down.

They want to set aside park land and keep the lake accessible to all. They want stores and restaurants without creating a paved-over nightmare. They want to maintain the quality of the school system as it stretches to absorb new students.

The Lake Stevens School District, which serves students all around the lake, has grown by 60 percent since 1991. There are more than 20 portable classrooms scattered throughout the district's eight schools to help accommodate more than 6,025 students. A new elementary school is scheduled to open by fall 1999.

"I think the challenge is really to bring the new families that are moving in and give them a sense of community -- give the kids a sense of community," says Ken Limon, 52, the district's instruction director.

The quality of the city has changed dramatically in the past year alone, says Warren Jones, who has owned Jay's Market on Main Street for 19 years.

He sits at a picnic bench on a recent summer day, squeezed out of his office by a worker installing an alarm system. This summer the market and two restaurants were burglarized -- "a fairly professional job."

"I think it's inevitable if your community's going to grow, then sure enough you're going to have more traffic and more crime," says Jones.

Today, the city's business district is a 2-1/2-block strip with the market, a TruValue Hardware store, a barbershop, a video store, a Wells Fargo bank and a few restaurants.

"Business in Lake Stevens is relatively small-town: We know all our customers -- an awful lot of them -- by name," says Jones. "That's changing now. We used to know everybody."