Brighton Place Denied

Spokane County commissioners denied a developer’s plans for a 166-lot subdivision on Colbert land zoned for a quarter that many houses.

“While I like the layout and I certainly don’t have any qualms putting houses in that area, I think it (the development) is just too dense,” said Commissioner Steve Hasson.

In other action Tuesday, the commissioners changed the name of Green Bluff Road - actually just one short stretch of one of many roads with that moniker.

The unanimous decision to deny the Brighton Place subdivision reversed a December ruling by county hearing examiners. That board voted 2-1 to let developer Robert Guthrie subdivide the 89 acres into half-acre lots.

Guthrie’s land is between Green Bluff Road and Mount Spokane Park Drive, east of the Newport Highway. It is zoned semi-rural, a category that calls for two- to 10-acre lots.

Neighbors appealed the hearing examiner decision, saying Guthrie’s development would bring too many cars to their streets and too many students to schools that already are crowded.

The Green Bluff Road that bounds Guthrie’s proposed subdivision is not the one that was renamed Tuesday.

The renamed stretch, now called Lower Green Bluff Road, starts about a quarter-mile north of DayMt. Spokane Road. It forms a “T” with one Green Bluff Road and is a spur off another.

Some neighbors said firefighters and ambulance drivers have a tough time finding their houses.

Commissioner Phil Harris asked why the name couldn’t be changed to Green Bluff Drive, but neighbors said that name already is in use.

“We’ve got a Green Bluff Drive and a Green Bluff Circle and Green Bluff just about anything else you can think of,” said one neighbor, adding that other roads are named Greenbluff.

Another neighbor asked that the road be renamed Beck Hill Road, in honor of early settlers on the bluff. But a farmer who grows strawberries and Christmas trees said his u-pick business would slump if his address lost its connection to Green Bluff.