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Parcel 0626079039 · Duvall-Monroe Road NE · King County

A landmark barn, 75 idle acres, and a promise the public bought twice.

In 1986 the public bought this ground's farming future: a farmland-preservation easement over the whole tract. In 2020 it bought the farm itself, for a trail it has yet to fund. It got neither the farming nor the trail. We propose one use that delivers both: a community-farming cooperative, a bounded food hub in the heritage barn, and the trailhead, all on a lease. No purchase, and no conversion of the conservation land.

The opportunity

Farmers in this county spend years hunting for ground they can afford, while this farm, worked as cattle pasture right up to the county's 2020 purchase, sits in grass. It sits for structural reasons: the trail it was bought for is unfunded, and no county division is resourced to farm it. A cooperative lease closes a gap the county cannot close itself: it puts the land back to the work the public paid for in 1986, delivers the county's own trail purpose, and advances its stated food-sovereignty goals, on land already zoned, classified, and encumbered for farming.

The parcel at a glance
Size
75.8 acres
Snoqualmie River frontage
Designated for farming
Three ways
1986 easement · Agricultural Production District · A-35 zoning
Owner
King County Parks
Acquired 2020, fee, $1,058,600
On site
Landmark barn
Standing; heritage potential, not yet assessed
Status
Idle since 2020
Farmed until the sale; grass since
Fifty years of public promises on this ground
1977 · the corridor
The county buys the old railway
The Milwaukee Road right-of-way along the parcel's east edge enters county hands (Parks inventory date 2/14/1977), the future Snoqualmie Valley Trail.
1986 · the farming future
The public buys the development rights
The farm's owners deed its development rights to King County under the voter-approved Farmland Preservation Program (recorded 11/07/1986, #198611070673, the full 75.8 acres). The recorded purpose of that instrument is to keep this ground farmland, forever.
1986-2020 · a working farm
Farmed the whole time
The county's own 2017 field survey mapped roughly 85 percent of the parcel as farmed cattle pasture; federal cropland data reads pasture, hay, and a silage episode across the private years.
2020-21 · the fee
The public buys the farm itself
King County buys the whole parcel for $1,058,600 with Conservation Futures and Parks Levy money, as a "Snoqualmie Valley Trail Site," and takes the adjoining strip in 2021. The farming stops with the sale.
Since 2020 · idle
Neither farm nor trail
The trail extension remains unfunded (ranked #31 on the county's own needs list). The only work since has been a 2023 demolition of derelict outbuildings. The landmark barn still stands.
One synergetic use
The engine
Community Farm Cooperative
A cooperative works the acreage, organizing community growers, with the nonprofit arm as co-steward. Farming is what the 1986 instrument exists to preserve.
Phase 1The vision →
The revenue
Bounded Food Hub
A farm-store market and a value-added agricultural kitchen in the restored heritage barn, scoped as agriculture, that make the farming financially viable.
Phase 2The vision →
The public good
Trailhead
Our team designs and builds the Snoqualmie Valley Trail trailhead here, delivering the county's own designated purpose and bringing trail users as customers.
Parallel trackThe vision →
The legal shape in one lineWe do not buy the land and we do not convert it. The land carries two recorded instruments: the 1986 farmland-preservation easement, whose recorded purpose is farming, and the 2020 Conservation Futures / Parks Levy covenant. King County Code 26.12.010.K exempts joint-use agreements and "operations compatible with the use of a project" from the conversion rule. Farming here is not merely compatible with the encumbrances; it is what the older one was bought to preserve.
Explore the plan
01
The Parcel
Title, the chain of ownership, the heritage barn, and the buildable envelope on a shoreline parcel.
FactsOpen →
02
Why It's Idle
Not negligence but a structural governance gap the county itself diagnosed.
The caseOpen →
03
The Legal Path
Compatible use, not conversion. Two recorded instruments, and the route through both.
ReassuranceOpen →
04
Regulatory Roadmap
The shoreline long pole, the armored bank, and the surveys to front-run.
FeasibilityOpen →
05
Funding
Two entities, two funnels. Which grant funds which cost, and its expectations.
The stackOpen →
06
Budget & The Raise
The ballpark cost, and why you raise the peak, not the total.
The numberOpen →
07
Build & Raise Phasing
Shell, farm, then kitchen. Each phase de-risks the next, legally and financially.
SequenceOpen →
08
The Record & Open Work
Every claim with its citation, every open question with a named next step.
The spineOpen →

Where the record stands, and what is open

The public record is pulled and parsed. What remains is on the ground.

As of July 11, 2026, every portal-reachable public document on this land has been pulled: the deeds, the 1986 easement index, the title exceptions, the permit trail, and the state grant records. What remains is honest and named: four records requests drafted and ready to send, the 1986 easement's text on order, a site walk, and conversations with the neighbors who know this ground better than any record. The two kill switches stay in plain view too: water and septic feasibility, and the county's compatible-use determination across both recorded instruments. It is all on the record page.

The record & open work The vision Write to us
Sources & findings