Working with the Trust for Public Lands, the company plans to retire the development rights to the property through the purchase of conservation easements that will require the land to remain working forest forever.
It would mean that some 1,700 homes that could be built on the property under current county zoning would not be allowed, even if the land is sold to someone else in the future.
Meanwhile, another 7,000 acres the Shelton-based timber company owns in northeast Mason County would remain available for several cluster development projects totaling about 800 homes over the next 30 years.
As described, it would be one of the largest landscape-planning efforts undertaken by a timber company in a Western Washington county, noted James Reinhardsen, managing director of Heartland, a Seattle-based land-use planning consultant.
“We’re trying to avoid rural sprawl,” said Mike Pruett, vice president of land management and business development for Green Diamond. “We’re trying to cut that off at the pass.”
All of the 25,000-acre parcel is zoned by Mason County for rural residential development on five-, 10- and 20-acre lots.
Green Diamond owns some 177,000 acres of forestland in Mason County, but only the lands east of U.S. Highway 101 between Belfair and Kamilche are subject to the forest-conservation and rural-development plan.
The Trust for Public Lands, a national nonprofit conservation group, is partnering with Green Diamond to secure public and private funding to buy conservation easements on the 18,000 acres.
The conservation easements purchased by the land trust would allow Green Diamond to keep harvesting timber, but those easements also could lead to increased public access, trails and recreation on the working forests.
“Conserving working forests is right up our alley,” said John Hoey, state program manager for the Trust for Public Lands.
Green Diamond is a privately held company that has operated for 120 years in Mason County. It owns some 320,000 acres of forestland in Western Washington.
Green Diamond and the Trust for Public Land officials are meeting with South Sound tribes, local governments, citizen groups and economic-development interests to explain their proposal, which will be refined and developed further over the next several months.
John Dodge: 360-754-5444 jdodge@theolympian.com
