New community blossoms on ridge, but sparks new worries

By TRACY JOHNSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The time-worn homes near Railroad Avenue are a sharp contrast to the ample houses beginning to crowd Snoqualmie Ridge's winding drives. The village will soon have roughly 1,500 houses and about 600 condominiums and apartments.

Ten acres will hold retail -- a grocery, restaurants and other yet-to-be signed stores -- and another 97 acres are for a business park. Optiva was the first company to move in, and the electronic toothbrush-making company now employs about 500 people.

Most expected the development to be built and filled with people in 10 years, but it looks as though it will now happen in five, says City Administrator Kim Wilde.

More than 200 of the homes are done and many more are under way. The neighborhood, overlooking an exclusive PGA tournament golf course, is dotted with small parks and has sweeping views of forested valleys and hazy mountains.

City officials expect the development to bring in at least $1 million in taxes next year. That's 10 percent of the city's 1999 budget, and roughly 20 percent of the city's annual budget back when the Snoqualmie Ridge development was merely a controversial proposal.

Weyerhaeuser has paid more than $1 million this year for added city staffing. It agreed to help until its development creates a tax base that can support the extra workers, Wilde says, though that's likely only a year away.

The company gave the city $1.5 million for a new public works building, which should be completed next year. It will dedicate the parks and trails it builds on the Ridge to the city.

The company also built a $2.5 million police station, a tidy, cream-colored building that moved the city's officers from the historic downtown last winter to the burgeoning hillside. Leasing it for $220,000 annually, the city will own it in 20 years.

Snoqualmie doubled its force to 12 officers this year to prepare for the population boom, Wilde says.

Crime in Snoqualmie is fairly low, consisting mainly of thefts, car prowls and drug-related arrests.

Atop the ridge, many young families are moving in. New neighbors are becoming fast friends, and kids are throwing slumber parties.

Snoqualmie reminds Ridge homeowner Lynn Bachert a bit of the small railroad town in New Mexico where she grew up.

"There's families everywhere -- a real neighborhood feel," she says, sitting atop a playground fort and watching her two young sons, Connor and Kirk, chase each other and laugh.

Her husband, Ray, a program manager at Microsoft, gestures toward the picturesque mountains and valleys all around.

"It's just really peaceful out here," he says.

Matt Larson and his family moved from Renton to the Ridge earlier this year, though he once didn't expect to consider buying a house there.

"I heard about all the controversy, and I drove up here out of curiosity," he says, watching his 2-year-old son, Nicholas, peer at him through the top of a tube-shaped playground slide.

"I was really struck by this wonderful neighborhood," the boy's father continues.

Larson says he and his wife often pop into downtown Snoqualmie shops to buy groceries, hardware and other goods. Since they moved in five months ago, they've tried to support businesses in the town they now call home.

"We were very concerned about there being a rift, with all the controversy, between the 'towners' and the 'ridgers,' " he said. But he says he hasn't run into any hostility.

He knows many are just leery of change.

Bruce Hartzel, who begins work as a groundskeeper for a Fall City golf course before dawn each day, likes to cap off his afternoons with a few beers at Smokey Joe's. The dim tavern has been around far longer than he has.

"When it turns into a yuppie bar, that's when I'm out the door," Hertzel said, motioning with his cigarette and taking a swig of his cold Redhook. "That's one of the things I like about it -- it hasn't changed much."