The Renton City Council Monday night (Jan. 26) accepted petitions for two annexations that could make Renton the second-largest city in the county.
However, council members made it clear they want more information about the services the city would need to provide to the new areas, Skyway and Fairwood, and the cost of those services. City staff is preparing that analysis.
An analysis done in 2005 showed that the tax revenue generated by Skyway/West Hill would fall about $2.3 million a year short of paying for its services. The shortfall in Fairwood is estimated at about $700,000.
The council’s 5-1 vote allows the annexation process to move forward on Skyway/West Hill, where about 15,000 people live, and in Fairwood, where nearly 28,000 people are included in the annexation area. The Fairwood annexation is known as Choose Renton.
The council’s action is not the last opportunity it has to stop the two annexations from moving forward, if it finds they aren’t in the best interest of the city and its residents. Skyway/West Hill and Fairwood are both potential annexation areas for the city.
“We cannot put our city in jeopardy in terms of services,” said council member King Parker.
The council used the term “exploratory” in describing how it wants the city to proceed with the two annexations in the next few months.
The council could stop one or both annexations simply by not sending the two proposals to the Washington state Boundary Review Board for King County within six months.
When the votes might occur on the two annexations is at least a year away. The Fairwood annexation also is in abeyance until after the fate of a City of Fairwood is decided.
The annexations would add about 42,000 people to the city.
If both areas annex, Renton’s population would jump to about 124,000 people, making Renton the county’s second-largest city, after Seattle. The city has a number of other annexations pending, too.
Bellevue, at about 120,000 people, now sits behind Seattle and is the fifth-largest city in the state. Renton would take Bellevue’s spot on the state list, too.
Specifically, the City Council acted a petition signed by 10 percent of the registered voters in each of the annexation areas.
If approved and upon the further review by the council, the petitions would then go to the Boundary Review Board for review and approval or rejection. Depending on what the board decides, the council would then set a date for an election in each of the annexation areas.
However, the Boundary Review Board cannot take action on the two annexations until after the fate of a city of Fairwood is known.
Choose Renton collected 919 signatures from registered voters in the Fairwood annexation area. The county Elections Division verified 654 of those signatures, validating the petition. The minimum was about 625 valid signatures.
The petition in Skyway was determined to be “sufficient” when the county verified 303 signatures of registered voters collected in the annexation area.
Annexation in both Fairwood and Skyway have been debated for years. Skyway is an unincorporated island surrounded by Renton, Tukwila and Seattle. It’s anticipated that the area could need millions of dollars in capital improvements to bring its infrastructure up to city standards.
The future of governance in Fairwood is more complicated than in Skyway. Voters in Fairwood may get a chance to vote on incorporation this year.
Also, there’s a second annexation in the works in Fairwood, the Red Mill annexation, that includes much of Fairwood’s commercial core. The Red Mill annexation area is not included in the larger Choose Renton annexation. How those two annexations might become one could be considered after a decision on Fairwood cityhood is made.
