Rainier Valley's urban heat island is about to get hotter with SDCI's decision to allow the Kingway Forest on MLK Way to be removed.

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The Kingway Forest is a wooded 1.5 acre site right next door to the Kingway Apartments, a 165-unit low-income housing complex home to many people who are BIPOC and have recently immigrated to the US. All of the forest's 124 trees will be removed, even though many grow along the property's edge, where they provide residents with a critical buffer to clean the air from the heavy traffic on MLK Way.  

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There are three designated Environmentally Critical Areas within the forest.

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Why Save These Trees?

The data on the health impacts of living near trees is overwhelming, with improved mental, physical and social health on every metric. Conversely, living without trees nearby — especially near polluted transit corridors such as Martin Luther King Way S — is proven to have toxic health impacts, from increased asthma, cancer, diabetes and depression, to lower infant birth weight. 

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This project contains three designated Environmentally Critical Areas, including a wetland recognized by the Washington State Department of Ecology. Plans show the wetland will be filled and paved. The wetland permit is under review, but SDCI has already granted waivers to build on the other two Environmentally Critical Areas.

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About Kingway Apartments

The Kingway is operated by Bellwether Housing, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit which "builds and manages high quality affordable housing so that people of diverse backgrounds and incomes thrive in urban King County’s high-cost housing market."

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Seattle's Tree Policies Perpetuate Environmental Injustice.

Most of Seattle's urban forest grows on private property. Seattle's currently allows the removal of all trees on private property when lots are developed, with street trees and public parks expected to provide the trees we know are essential for human health. Mathematically, this doesn't work—there is simply not enough public land to support the trees people need to survive in hot and polluted urban places. Seattle's own 2021 tree canopy study shows that trees are inequitably distributed. By allowing all multi-family housing to be built with no trees on site, in the future only wealthier neighborhoods will still have them.​

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This snip from the King County heat mapping project shows the cooler area the forest provides next to the Kingway Apartments. Once this forest is gone, the dark orange of heat will spread.

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How Can The Kingway Forest Be Saved?

Ask the City to require that the trees on the edge of the forest be saved. The current plan covers the lot with buildings and pavement, wastes space and leaves no room for the trees people need now, or future trees. Perimeter trees would buffer and protect both the Kingway Apartment residents and future residents of the new complex. 

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The developer's arborist report shows that many of the healthiest trees grow on the forest edge and could be saved. (The trees in the center of the forest are not as healthy, due to invasive ivy and other urban impacts.)