The continued conservation of almost 150,000 acres of rural land currently under public ownership or development control will be more secure with the passing of an amendment to the King County charter concerning open spaces.

That is opinion of Deputy Director of the Mountains to Sound Greenway Doug Schindler, who told The Reporter this week that the amendment would essentially make it more difficult for governments to off-load any of the properties on a list of 95 in King County.

“While public ownership does bring a higher level of protection, public agencies still sell and trade land all the time,” he said. “This amendment represents an added level of protection. Basically, it makes it a little tougher for governments to sell the land that has been identified as significant.”

Schindler said the new amendment would force governments to slow down and more thoroughly consider the sale of any of the properties, and ensure that nearby residents were involved in the decision making process.

Any proposal to sell or trade land on the list of properties would need a super-majority to pass the council, that is, seven of the nine councilors as opposed to the usual five.

King County would need to conduct a public meeting at least 28 days after the introduction of a proposal to alter the list, in addition to publishing a finding of fact document, explaining why the land should be sold or traded.

Such reasoning would be limited to arguing that the land no longer had significant ecological value, or that by trading the land, the county could secure another parcel of land of greater ecological significance.

The 95 properties to be covered by the amendment are deemed to have high conservation value, and include properties in and around Issaquah and Sammamish.

The Issaquah Environmental Council was one of a number of conservation and community groups to write letters of support for the Open Space Amendment to King County.

In her organization’s letter, Environmental Council Secretary Barbara Shelton said that they were “concerned about the breadth of the exemptions allowed, but see this as necessary protection for very important parcels.”

Cougar Mountain Regional Park, the Cougar/Squak mountain corridor, the Evans Creek and Evan Crest natural areas, the Hazel Wolf Wetlands, portions of Issaquah Creek and Patterson Creek, and the Squak/Tiger mountain corridor are all included in the list as properties of high conservation value.

“What this does is make it clear that these natural areas are our heritage,” Schindler said. “If in the future our grandchildren want to sell or trade the land, then this says to them ‘hey, wait a minute, these lands were very important to us, and you need to be very careful about trading that away.’”