As Bellevue acquires property in the Northtowne neighborhood to clear space for the pending Fire Station 10, some residents say they felt left out of the process and are now paying the price.

Fire Station 10 is a proposed addition to the Bellevue Fire Department’s coverage area mainly impacting Downtown Bellevue. The proposed station is planned on an 2.82-acre plot of land near the corner of 112th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 12th Street.

The city is currently in the acquisition process of securing that land, which would necessitate the displacement of six owners and nine parcels of land.

The plot chosen was selected from 18 different plots of land located somewhere in a square bordered on the north by Northeast 14th Street, on the west by 105th Avenue Northeast, on the south by Northeast 6th Street and on the east by Interstate 405, according to Bellevue Fire Chief Mark Risen.

“The process weighed heavily on technical requirements,” he said. “Response time was huge. Confining fires to the room of origin and cardiac survival rates, that was the number one criteria for us.”

The locations under consideration will not be made public until later this month.

Nora Johnson, Bellevue’s director of civic services, said that nine city departments collaborated to select the location for the proposed station. She said all of the locations would have displaced residents or businesses.

“There just aren’t undeveloped lots in that section of the city,” she said.

This was not a public process, and some residents feel blindsided.

Shahram Daneshmandi, a resident of the impacted neighborhood and representative of the Northtowne Neighborhoods Association, filed a public records request to release all 18 sites for public scrutiny.

In a letter, he requests the legality of the decision, the analysis of the locations, the traffic, noise and property value impact of the proposed fire station and asks how the city plans to deal with purported wetlands on the property.

Paul Braillier wrote a letter to the Reporter in which he states that the station could have been located elsewhere without impacting residents negatively, and that analysis of the location was faulty.

Bellevue’s policy is to pay “fair market value” whenever it purchases private property for public works. With average home prices in Bellevue at more than $700,000, a rough estimate climbs upwards of $6.3 million, funds already approved by the city for its 2015-21 Capital Investment Program. The city approved $7.25 million for the purchase of property, as well as considerable funds to rebuild Fire Station 5 in Clyde Hill and Bellevue Public Safety Training Center upgrades ttopping $24 million, all told.

At a city council meeting last month, one resident spoke about the impact this project would have on his family.

“We have owned this property for 38 years,” said Richard Edgar, owner of two of the buildings on the site to be bought and demolished. “And in 2005 to 2008, we built a new house on the property for our retirement years. It was the first new construction on the block in 40 years.”

According to Chief Risen, the new station will allow fire crews to limit travel time to under three minutes for high-rise and under four minutes for non-high-rise incidents almost anywhere in the Downtown, Wilburton and Ashwood neighborhoods of the city.

Bellevue Fire Department spokesman Ryan Armstrong said that because of the increasing percentage of high-rise buildings in Downtown as well as more traffic congestion, what was once within a four-minute travel time of crews at Fire Station 1 (near Bellevue High School) and Fire Station 5 (in Clyde Hill on Northeast 24th Street) isn’t any longer.

According to the Fire Facilities Master Plan, “there are gaps in meeting the three-minute travel time to incidents in the neighborhoods of Northwest Bellevue, downtown, BelRed and Wilburton.”

Bellevue Fire Department, one of the top-three fire departments in Washington and in the top 1 percent of the 46,699 rated fire departments in the nation, holds itself to higher-than-required standards.

In 2010, 7,147 people lived in Downtown Bellevue. By 2030, that number is predicted to reach as high as 19,000.

Even with the need for the station, Risen acknowledged the frustrations.

“We understand the community’s concerns,” he said. “We understand the impacts of being displaced. I have a 90-year-old mother in her home. We want to make sure these people are treated fairly.”

Johnson said that detailed appraisals of the land and properties have not been done yet, but would be before acquisition talks finished. She said it’s typical to not reveal city property dealings until decisions have been made to avoid speculative buying by unscrupulous developers.

Either way, demolition of structures at the selected location wouldn’t begin for 18 months. Johnson said that if residents didn’t agree to sell by spring of 2017, the city could look into eminent domain, but that was a last-resort.

The money has already been approved to acquire the properties, but a fire facilities measure on Bellevue’s ballot this November would give the city the funds needed to design and construct Fire Station 10. That measure, if approved, would increase property tax by 12.5 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value — an average of $80 annually per home. It would also provide money for retrofitting stations around the city for seismic activity, warehouse space for reserve equipment and other upgrades to existing stations.

The fire department will host a community meeting at 6:30 on Oct. 18 at the safety training center, 1838 116th Ave. NE.

Risen said residents will get questions answered then.

“While we are very certain that this is the best site, these evaluations of the property haven’t been as in-depth as we would have liked yet,” he said.