Commissioners Make Decisions On Two Housing Developments

Two developments proposed for the North Side got mixed reviews Tuesday from Spokane County commissioners.

One, a 24-lot subdivision planned for 120 acres on the Half Moon Prairie, went down to defeat.

The other, a proposal for 27 lots on 10 acres east of Highway 395 and north of Gleneden Drive, was approved.

The Half Moon Prairie plan, proposed for property off Half Moon Road and straddling Burk Road, generated quite a controversy late last year.

More than 130 people who lived near the project signed a petition protesting it. Another 30 sent letters to the county planning department asking that it be denied.

Many neighbors appeared before the county’s hearing examiner committee to plead that the land be preserved for agricultural pursuits.

The committee, which makes decisions on land-use issues in the unincorporated area, approved the project anyway.

The neighbors appealed that decision to the county commissioners, setting the stage for Tuesday’s decision. The commissioners agreed with the neighbors.

The project would encroach on land that the county has identified as rural, Commissioner Steve Hasson said, and therefore violates the county’s comprehensive land-use plan. That’s unacceptable, Hasson said. The board voted 3-0 to uphold the appeal, thus denying the subdivision.

In the Gleneden case, it was the developer who appealed. Harley Douglass thought that a condition placed on his project by the hearing examiner committee that required him to take part in potential improvements to state Highway 395 was excessive and asked the commissioners to remove it. As it turned out, they didn’t have to.

State and county traffic engineers, after studying the potential impacts of the development, said Douglass’ project would have a minimal effect on traffic in the area.

No mitigation is needed, said Leonard Cash of the Washington Department of Transportation.

That didn’t sit well with one neighbor of the project, who said traffic in his nearby neighborhood is already bad and will get worse when the project goes through.

“All these developments, it has created a traffic safety hazard,” said Ed Hadley, who estimated that more than 500 families living in the area use the same corridor through his neighborhood to get to Spokane. “I want to know what we’re going to do about it?”

Commission Chairman Skip Chilberg and Hasson told Hadley they were sympathetic but that all that could be done to alleviate traffic congestion in the area had been done.

“When the state Department of Transportation and the county traffic experts tell us there are no significant impacts, it’s hard for us to say that there are,” Chilberg said.

He and Hasson then voted 2-0 to uphold Douglass’ appeal and remove the hearing examiner condition from his project. Commissioner Phil Harris excused himself from the vote, saying he was a friend of Hadley’s.