King County owns a 75.8-acre farm on the Snoqualmie River, just south of Duvall, that has sat idle since it was bought in 2020. The public record shows something remarkable: the public has bought this ground twice, its farming future in 1986 and the farm itself in 2020, and today it delivers neither the farming nor the planned trail. We propose one use that delivers both: a community-farming cooperative, a bounded food hub (farm-store market and value-added kitchen in the restored heritage barn), and a trailhead our team builds. It requires no purchase and, structured correctly, no legal conversion of the conservation land.
| 1977 | The county buys the old railway corridor along the east edge, the future Snoqualmie Valley Trail. |
| 1986 | The public buys the development rights under the voter-approved Farmland Preservation Program (#198611070673, full parcel). The instrument's recorded purpose: keep this ground farmland, permanently. Its verbatim text is on order. |
| 1986-2020 | A working farm under every private owner: the county's own 2017 survey mapped ~85% farmed cattle pasture. |
| 2020-21 | The public buys the farm itself ($1,058,600, deed #20201223002074, Conservation Futures + Parks Levy covenants in the deed's own Exhibit A) as a trail site, plus the corridor remainder in 2021. |
| Since | Grass. The trail is unfunded (#31 on the county's needs list, est. $17-35M); one 2023 demolition of derelict outbuildings. Neither promise delivered. |
Structural, not malicious: held by a trails division, never moved into the county's under-capacity farm-lease program, with the 1986 promise assigned to no one. The county named this exact pattern itself in 2016. A cooperative lease closes a gap the county cannot close alone, on-mission with its food-sovereignty goals.
Two recorded instruments encumber the land; we lease, not buy, and fight neither. King County Code 26.12.010.K exempts joint-use agreements and compatible operations from the conversion rule. Farming is not merely compatible: it is the 1986 instrument's recorded purpose. The one approval to win is the county's compatible-use determination, across both instruments.
The bank is named county flood infrastructure (three facilities), with a 25-ft public right of way along the water in the title record, and no documented planting on the bank in any open public source. Restoration crews are active at the creek mouth next door through 2026. The plan folds the bank in: a stewarded riparian buffer, designed with the county and its partners, sized to the 1986 easement the way the precedent next door already is.
Three prongs, all must read GO to release the escrowed formation raise: (A) a buildable envelope on upland from the surveys, (B) a contractor estimate inside the budget, (C) county compatible-use and lease. Early money is spent regardless; only the formation raise refunds on a no-go.
Record before rumor. Every claim above carries a citation in the full briefing; every open question has a named next step, published alongside the pitch.