Parking has always been a thorny issue in La Conner, most notably on First Street parallel to the town’s popular historic waterfront.

Now it figures in yet another flap, this time over joint use easements the Town signed with Landed Gentry the day the developer bought the Hedlin Farms Maple Avenue property, April 16.

Town Councilmembers last week heard objections raised by residents that the easement at the rear of the property would cut into the 24,000 square feet set aside for the park.

Seventy per cent of the former ballfield will be developed by Landed Gentry Homes into 10 single-family residential sites. The remainder of the nearly two-acre location is to be retained as a park.

Jules Riske, who resides at Maple and Talbott, just north of the former ballfield and is a Hedlin family member, spoke to the issue and read detailed point-by-point correspondence signed by 30 citizens opposed to the easement, pointing out it violates a restrictive covenant the Town signed with the Hedlin Family designating 30 per cent of the property as a public park.

“I feel Jules’ commentary is quite comprehensive,” La Connerite Amy McFeely told Council members. “The language for preservation is clear: it’s for 24,000 contiguous square feet. It’s essential to honor the restrictive covenant.”

That view was supported by Felicia Value, who participated at the June 22 Zoom meeting as a La Conner resident and not in her role as an attorney.

“I’m not representing a client,” Value said, adding that she doesn’t “understand the Town’s position. The restrictive covenant says 24,000 square feet.”

Kai Ottesen, a fourth-generation member of the Hedlin family that has for decades leased the property for local youth sports, echoed that sentiment.

“Ceding 4,000 square feet to the developer is against the restrictive covenant,” he said.

It was Second Street resident Madeleine Roozen who framed the matter in its most dire terms.

“The elephant is in the room,” said Roozen. “Do we have a lawsuit here?”

Town Administrator Scott Thomas, also the town attorney, provided what he said was both a practical and legal response.

On the practical side, Thomas noted that the layout for the 10 homes at the old ballfield has changed since the easement was granted. Rather than two rows of five houses, the plan now is to build two clusters of five homes in a 2-3 front-to-back configuration allowing direct traffic access from Maple Avenue.

That arrangement could eliminate the need for an easement, Thomas indicated.

But parking would still be required for the public park side, he said. And parking, he pointed out, is considered a public use.

“Parking is important,” Thomas said. “Without parking we can’t have a park – at least not one this size. It would have to be a pocket park like the ones downtown.”

Mayor Ramon Hayes told the Weekly News afterward that a driving force to increasing the park area from its original 20,000 square-foot allotment to 24,000 square feet was to factor in parking requirements.

“One reason the Town bumped the park up to 24,000 square feet (in negotiations with a citizen’s group)” Hayes explained, “was because we needed to have parking. We didn’t want that to affect the (recreational) public space.”

Hayes said fulfilling parking mandates for a 20,000 square-foot park would have been yet more impactful.

Thomas suggested a potential remedy would be to create parking for the park along East Talbott Street. But he said that option would involve an un-budgeted capital outlay for re-surfacing and installation of curbs, gutters and a sidewalk.

Thomas said the Town and Landed Gentry continue to be in talks regarding the housing part of the equation. He said he could not elaborate.

“I don’t want to negotiate in public,” he said.

Council member MaryLee Chamberlain noted that the Town Parks Commission is overseeing a survey process to determine how the public wants the park component designed.

The survey is expected to be ready later this year, perhaps in early fall.

“The community has time to think about this,” said David Hedlin, part of the family that owned the property. “As time goes on, with careful thought, you can develop it as the community sees fit. If it is green grass kids will know what to do.”

That echoes his position in February 2020 when the offer to the Town was first made public. “This community,” he said then, “has never suffered from doing things too slowly.”