Most Speak Against Annexation City Wants To Annex 212 Acres On Glenrose Prairie

More than 100 people filled the Spokane City Council chambers Monday night to argue about the city’s proposal to annex 212 acres of pastoral Glenrose Prairie.

They included polished attorneys, persuasive developers and descendants of pioneers. There were shaky-voiced retirees, determined homemakers and urban refugees.

None spoke as eloquently as the bugling bull elk strutting through fields where a developer would like to put 17 houses on every five acres. The branch-antlered monarch, along with other elk, deer and coyotes, was captured on videotape by an annexation opponent.

“Our neighbor, Marge, has documented over 100 species of birds in our area,” said the film’s narrator, Denis Moore, who died recently.

If the annexation is approved, Glenrose Prairie would become part of the city of Spokane and the land could be cut up into small lots.

Spokane County earmarks the land for five-acre lots but has made exceptions to that rural classification, allowing housing developments on the western fringe of the prairie where city water and sewer are available.

The development is appropriate, said developer Al Payne and others, because the prairie is just 10 minutes from downtown.

People have to live somewhere, and if the prairie isn’t developed, other more remote land will be, Payne said. That means more urban sprawl and higher costs for providing water, sewer and other services, as well as for the houses themselves.

“Urban sprawl is what we are not,” Payne said. “City water and sewer are adjacent to our site. … A new park is being developed just west of our site and Chase Middle School is just to the north.”

Carl Bernson said he welcomes the chance to develop the 18 acres he has owned since 1940. The land was farmed until 1985, when Bernson’s share of the profits was $68.

“This property is a significant part of our retirement and is ready for residential development,” Bernson said.

Bernson was in the minority, however. Most who spoke talked of preserving wildlife, rural values, history and open vistas.

“Urban density … is truly not appropriate here,” said Nancy Boge, whose great-grandparents followed the Mullan Trail to Glenrose Prairie in 1876. They were its first settlers, she said.

Thumping the lectern with his forefinger, attorney Steve Eugster said annexation would be an “end run” around the state’s Growth Management Act, which is designed to prevent sprawl.

Under that law, cities are supposed to annex no more land than would be developed at urban densities in 20 years. Eugster said there already is enough undeveloped land in the city - on Five Mile Prairie and along Latah Creek, for instance - for all the people likely to move to Spokane between now and 2012.

The city Plan Commission in May recommended the city annex only about half of the Glenrose Prairie proposal, using a low rise of land as the dividing line. Opponents and proponents alike said the rise would make a poor boundary.

Councilman Joel Crosby said the annexation should be all or nothing. He argued that the city could preserve land as easily as the county, although Spokane has no zoning classification for open land.

City Council members said they’ll decide soon how much of the land should be annexed, if any at all. If they decide to pursue annexation, the issue will go to the Boundary Review Board, which would hold another hearing.

If approved by the review board, the issue will come back to the council for a final vote.

Residents who live within areas targeted for annexation can block such proposals if those who control at least half the land value, collectively, sign petitions.

That’s not possible on Glenrose Prairie because residents in the housing developments approved by county commissioners - where most of the property value lies - signed away their rights to fight annexation. The contracts were a condition for getting city sewer and water.

, DataTimes