Woodway, WA is a residential town of 1,340 people, by the state’s April 1, 2026 estimate, on Puget Sound just north of the King County line. It grew from a 1912 plan for wooded homesites of two acres or more, its motto is “The Quiet Place,” and since 2024 its limits have included Point Wells, an industrial site on the shore.
Who planned Woodway?
David Whitcomb did. In 1912 he arranged to buy 320 acres of recently logged land from Allen M. and Amanda Yost for $85,000, according to HistoryLink. The town’s history places the tract between Richmond Beach and Edmonds, stretching about a mile along the Sound and about half a mile east. Whitcomb later brought the total to 400 acres.
The original deeds did the planning. Lots had to be two acres or more, permanent buildings had to stand 50 feet from property lines and 100 feet back from the street, utilities went underground, and commercial enterprises were barred, the town’s history says. That is historical deed language, not today’s zoning. The first lot did not sell until October 1, 1920, and HistoryLink adds that no official plat of Woodway Park was ever filed with Snohomish County, so the county assessor drew its own.
Why did Woodway incorporate?
To avoid being annexed. In October 1957 the Esperance Community Club proposed including Woodway Park in a large annexation to Edmonds, HistoryLink reports, quoting the Edmonds centennial booklet. Woodway Park alone lacked the residents to form a town, so the proposal took in Twin Maples, other nearby neighborhoods and parts of the adjacent Standard Oil and Union Oil properties.
On February 18, 1958, voters cast ballots at a private home and approved incorporation 99 to 83. The council met in private homes until a city hall was built in 1963, and a new town hall went up on the same site in 2013. The town’s history says Woodway began with 660 acres and about 400 people.
What do land use and Point Wells look like today?
The town’s comprehensive plan, adopted December 2, 2024 by Ordinance 2024-661, calls land use “predominantly single-family residential.” Its zoning categories are broader than the old deeds: single-family lots of 7,000 square feet, one-quarter acre, one-third acre, one acre and two acres. Residential uses cover about 90 percent of the land. The residential neighborhoods have no commercial zoning, and the plan’s only non-residential uses are public ones, such as Town Hall and open-space parcels, and the existing industrial use at Point Wells.
Point Wells has a separate history. The plan describes a 62-acre site on Puget Sound, surrounded on three sides by the town’s residential zones and annexed in May 2024. Most of it is still used as an industrial facility, and it also holds BNSF right-of-way and the outfall portal for King County’s Brightwater treatment system. A future urban village there has been planned for years, and the town adopted its Point Wells Subarea Plan in 2020 to guide any development. That is planning, not something built. The main access runs along Richmond Beach Drive NW, through Woodway and the City of Shoreline, a separate municipality across the King County line.
The reserves and Deer Creek
Woodway counts about 24 acres of parkland. The largest piece is the Carla Nichols Reserve, 13 acres by the comprehensive plan’s count, at the south end of town and divided by Timberlane Road. The Upper Reserve has a short loop trail through second-growth forest. The Central Reserve, across from Town Hall at 113th Place W and 240th Street SW, ends at a gazebo with benches, and shares its two parking places with the John Bush Play Area. Deer Creek Park, created in 2016, has a trail beside the creek, a trail up to a meadow, a picnic area and exercise equipment.
How do you get around from Woodway?
The plan says town streets connect north to Edmonds Way (SR 104), east to SR 99 and Interstate 5, and south to Richmond Beach Road. It also says Community Transit does not serve Woodway proper: its buses run along Edmonds Way, and King County Metro runs along Richmond Beach Road. Sounder’s weekday N Line trains stop at Edmonds Station in neighboring Edmonds.
Living here
A town that drew its own lines in 1958, began with two-acre lots written into its deeds, and still zones its neighborhoods for homes and public land: Woodway is defined largely by what it left out.
If you are weighing a move to Woodway, or selling a home here, Chase Hedin, Managing Broker, can help you weigh how its lot sizes, its reserves and the planning around Point Wells fit your plans. Start a conversation or ask what your home is worth.