Vera May Go Ahead With Water Line For Ranch Park Irrigation District Defies Ruling
A Spokane Valley water district will ignore the decision of a state board and extend lines to nearly 460 acres of mostly rural land.
Officials with the state Boundary Review Board voted recently to deny a plan by the Vera Irrigation District to annex the Ranch Park Estates subdivision and surrounding land, nearly 640 acres.
Review board members said the water extension would lead to unnecessary urban growth in the rugged, undeveloped area off state Highway 27, south of the Valley.
Vera manager Kevin Wells said the water district will move forward with part of the project anyway, saying the district didn’t need the board’s approval for some of the land.
State law allows water districts to serve lands within the district’s immediate water service area without review board approval, Wells said.
“It was a disappointing review by the board,” he said. “But we will go foward with part of it.”
Review board planner Susan Winchell sent a memorandum to County Commissioner Steve Hasson informing him of Vera’s plans.
Hasson, whose district encompasses Ranch Park Estates, is opposed to the annexation and has vowed to fight it.
Some property owners in the area asked to be annexed to Vera Irrigation so they could get public water.
The few homes in Ranch Park currently get drinking water from private wells.
Wells said the homeowners will be able to get public water under the partial annexation. The fate of the undeveloped land is still in question, he said, although the district thinks it can serve that area, too.
Winchell has been unable to confirm Wells’ assertions.
“I was unable to locate a copy of the Water System Plan for the Vera Irrigation District … so I do not know if the district’s proposed water extension to the 670 acres is consistent,” she wrote to Hasson.
Hasson said even if the land is within the district’s immediate plans, the annexation is a bad idea.
Public water will open the door to intense development in the area, and roads and other infrastructure aren’t sufficient to handle it, the commission said.
The land, most of which is owned by the Pacific Securities development firm, is outside the area that the county is targeting for urban growth, Hasson said.
“Spending a lot of ratepayers’ money to put a line out there that might not see use is not a wise move,” he said. “They’re just doing something defiant and stupid.”
Wells said he’s sorry officials feel that way.
“It’s a shame that they’re tying all their growth plans for that area to water,” said Wells, who maintains the county has the final say on development in the area, and that water is only one piece of the puzzle.
Hasson said he’s instructed the county planning and legal staff to research the matter to see if the commissioners have authority to block the annexation.
, DataTimes