Island Center Forest will grow by nearly 30 acres with two upcoming land purchases by King County.
The purchases, paid for by county tax dollars as well as state funds, were recently approved as part of King County’s budget for 2015-2016 and are expected to close early next year.
“These are really beautiful forests, mature, healthy forests,” said Dave Kimmett, a natural lands manager for the county Department of Natural Resources and Parks (DNRP).
Kimmett said DNRP is always looking to buy available forestland around Island Center Forest and has long had its eye on a 20-acre parcel near Mukai Pond that has informally been called the forest’s “missing tooth.” The undeveloped land is bordered on three sides by Island Center Forest and has a road that is used by people accessing the forest as well as a trail skirting its border.
“People already treat it like it’s part of Island Center Forest,” Kimmett said.
The property’s owners, an off-island couple, have been approached by Vashon’s land trust in the past, but just recently decided they were ready to sell.
“This has been a piece that we have really wanted badly to add to Island Center Forest for years and years,” said Tom Dean, director of the Vashon Maury Island Land Trust, which worked with King County on the purchases.
The other acquisition is on the southern edge of the forest, where an islander will sell 5 acres to King County as well as a 3-acre conservation easement. That parcel includes some of the headwaters of Judd Creek, and Dean noted that part of the property is approaching what would be considered an old growth forest and could be good habitat for flying squirrels.
King County and the landowner are still negotiating the terms of the conservation easement, Dean said, but it will mean that no other development could be done on the land, which already has a house.
The two purchases, totaling $720,000, will bring Island Center Forest, including the Gateway and Natural Area, to 443 acres. The purchases were funded with $350,000 from the King County Parks Levy and $100,000 from the county’s Conservation Futures Fund, which is supported by property taxes. The final $270,000 came from the $4 million in state funds that Sen. Sharon Nelson (D-Maury Island) helped secure last year for conservation on Vashon.
There are no immediate plans to build trails through the acquired land, but Dean said the southern purchase could help the county and land trust one day complete a trail from Quartermaster Harbor near Judd Creek, through Paradise Valley and to Island Center Forest.
“That’s the dream,” he said. “It’s coming together slowly.”
