Trust Land Transfer application · 2027–29 · filed, not granted

Whidbey Bluffs

Applied for by Island County · Island County · 24.8 acres

Acreage note: S-Pt 13.5 + S-Cove 11.3 per application; 3,700 ft of shoreline

What the application says

“Transfer into permanent conservation ownership would secure lasting public benefits by ensuring these rare feeder bluff systems remain undeveloped and ecologically functional... Smugglers Cove Trust Land has an archaeological site documented by DAHP [and] lies within the Tulalip Tribes' ancestral and 'Usual and Accustomed Area' under the Treaty of Point Elliott.”

Verbatim from the application (application Part D), DNR's public application repository.

Status

2025-09-302027-29 application cycle closed (40 applications received; 30 advanced)
2026-04-15Public comment period on advanced applications closed
2026-06-10Presented to the Trust Land Transfer Advisory Committee (Advisory Committee Meeting 4)

An application is not a transfer: the advisory committee scores parcels, the Board of Natural Resources approves a ranked list, and any transfer requires an appropriation in the state capital budget.

Coverage

Whidbey News-Times: Land Trust works to protect land leased from state; existing leases expire 2037

Documents

The application file in DNR's public repository →
DNR's Best Interests analyses and committee-meeting recordings live in the same repository; our archived copies land here as the records pipeline ingests them.

Parcel/applicant as listed by DNR — Proposed and Current Transfers (retrieved 2026-08-11). County: application Part B (Strawberry Point T33N R2E; Smugglers Cove T30N R2E). Corrections with documentation: records@saveourbacon.news.