County Opposes Water Line For Rural Land South Of Valley

Spokane County will fight a proposal to extend public water to 670 acres of mostly undeveloped land south of the Valley.

County engineers, planners and at least one commissioner are concerned that the water lines could lead to more development in an area that isn’t suited for it.

Some property owners in and around the Ranch Park subdivision asked to be annexed to Vera Irrigation District No. 15.

The area is generally east of state Highway 27 and south of Morrow Park Road.

Almost all the land is zoned general agriculture, a rural designation that discourages housing developments.

Nearly 400 acres of the land is undeveloped and owned by Pacific Securities Co., a development firm.

The 20 or so high-end homes already in the area get water from private wells.

The county has asked the state Boundary Review Board to review the proposal and decide whether it should be approved.

The proposal would have been approved automatically if the county had not requested the board’s review.

The board has scheduled a hearing for Sept. 11 at 1 p.m. in the downstairs meeting room of the county public works building, 1026 W. Broadway.

The county based its request on the fact that the land is designated rural and should probably stay that way.

“My opposition is due to a belief that public water systems should not be extended into rural areas because of the potential consequence such action engenders for future urban development,” County Commissioner Steve Hasson wrote in a letter to Vera.

County engineers have said the private roads in the area are not sufficient to handle the current traffic.

Opening up the land to development could worsen that situation, engineers say.

Kevin Wells, Vera manager, disputes those concerns.

“The annexation of this area cannot promote urban sprawl by itself,” Wells wrote in a letter to Hasson. “No further development can occur without the approval of the appropriate county agencies that review zoning and building permits.”

That’s true, Hasson said.

“Nonetheless, once water service is extended to rural areas … significant pressure is then placed upon the commission to acquiesce and allow development there,” the commissioner wrote.

“The argument posed by developers being - why did the commission lend support to the extension of an urban service within a rural area unless it also contemplated future urban development in that area?”

, DataTimes