SEATTLE — A group of downtown Seattle property owners must pay the City of Seattle $16 million to fund ongoing construction of the waterfront, a Washington Court of Appeals ruled this week.
The decision reverses a 2023 ruling that ordered the city to refund the $16 million to a small group of property owners who protested the Local Improvement District tax. The LID tax impacts more than 6,000 properties from SODO and Denny Way and provided $160 million for waterfront improvements.
The money from the property owners will be used for the over $800 million waterfront revitalization plan.
The LID tax was passed in 2019, and two years later, Seattle used an assessment to determine that downtown property owners collectively owed around $16 million, as they would benefit from the revitalization. A small group of property owners then protested the tax by suing the city, arguing their payment should be lowered, to which a King County Superior Court judge agreed in 2023.
Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison then challenged that ruling, and the appeals court agreed.
According to the appeals court, “the superior court erred in determining that the assessments were founded on a fundamentally wrong basis and that they were arbitrary and capricious. We hold that the City’s LID assessments were not calculated on a fundamentally wrong basis and that the City Council did not act arbitrarily or capriciously in adopting the LID assessments."
The property owners can still file a petition for review by the Washington Supreme Court.
The waterfront revitalization plan includes projects such as constructing or enhancing roads, sidewalks, and docks that connect more key features of the area, such as the Seattle Aquarium and Pike Place Market.
The project is expected to be completed by early 2025.
"We are in the homestretch of the construction here on the waterfront. We are looking to have everything wrapped up in early 2025," said Jessica Murphy, the construction program manager for the Office for the Waterfront.
Murphy said it is a proud moment to be close to completion and see more people use the waterfront promenade.
"We are here enjoying our future waterfront and becoming part of its history at the same time," Murphy said.
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