Tall Chief site sold to Valley dairy family

Published 12:21 pm Thursday, December 17, 2015

The 191-acre Fall City property that had been Tall Chief Golf Course until 2009, has been sold. In a 6-2 vote of the Metropolitan King County Council Dec. 7, the group agreed to the sale, for $720,000, to Steve and Janet Keller of Fall City.

According to the proposal the  Keller family submitted for the property during the proposal process in 2014, the Kellers plan to grow feed crops for their dairy cattle, to build greenhouses on the hillside above the floodplain and sublease those to area farmers, to save the existing buildings, if possible, and build farm worker housing.

Long-term, they propose a milk-processing plant on the land, and possibly a barn and other farm buildings.

The terms of the sale allow the family to build up to three houses, each of which is allowed an accessory dwelling unit. One housing unit is specified in the agreement and two more can be purchased for an additional $160,000 and $105,000.

Only one amendment to the agreement, requiring specific standards for the treatment of livestock on the property, was approved and added to the sales contract.

Most of the amendments proposed for inclusion into the sales agreement failed. These included amendments to:

• Allow only one additional housing unit and ban accessory dwelling units;

• Restrict farm worker housing, which does not fall under the same restrictions as residential units;

• Require the land be used for agricultural purposes — the current agreement only “encourages” the Kellers to put it to agricultural use;

• Reduce the number of group events allowed annually from 10 to 5;

• Require the buyer to provide public benefits “informally agreed to” in negotiations, such as historical signs;

• Raise the price of the future home rights by 3 percent annually starting in two years; and

• Limit the allowed amount of untilled land to 5 percent of the property, instead of the stated 10 percent, roughly 19 acres.

Two other proposals were submitted for the Tall Chief property, from Seattle Tilth and from the Valley flower-growing Kou Oh and Phong Cha family, during the county’s request for proposals period last year.

Critics of the sale claimed that the Tilth proposal for an incubator farm program was superior; however, neither of the other two parties in the proposal process had funding lined up, nor did they require such large sites, county officials said. Also, they said proceeds from the Tall Chief sale could be used to purchase land for the other proposals.