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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Candidate Broke Land-Use Rules Lila Howe Built House On Deer Lake Without Permission While A Stevens County Official

Spokane County commissioner candidate Lila Howe violated land-use regulations in Stevens County, where she served on the county Planning Commission, public records show.

Howe and her husband, Roy, a line-crew foreman for Washington Water Power Co., filled in a portion of Deer Lake without permission and, starting in 1987, built a house on top of the fill, according to the records.

Stevens County officials said the Howes built the house in the wrong location with an expired permit and poured concrete footings before a required inspection.

While pressuring county employees to approve the house, Lila Howe used her position as a planning commissioner to blister proposed shoreline regulations which could have affected her project.

Howe served on the Stevens County Planning Commission from September 1989, until May 3, 1994. In October 1994, a month after selling the still-unapproved Deer Lake house, Howe transferred her voter registration to the house on Whitworth Drive in Spokane that she and her husband have owned since 1979.

Now she is the only Republican challenger to incumbent Spokane County Commissioner John Roskelley, who will face Cliff Cameron in next month’s Democratic primary.

Roskelley declined to comment on Howe’s Stevens County actions, and Cameron was unavailable.

Stevens County officials never approved use of the house that the Howes built on their own, but the couple occupied it anyway. The Howes subsequently sold the house to another couple in September 1994.

Lila Howe said in a September 1987 building-permit application that the house would be 10 feet away from the original shoreline - as required by county ordinance. Instead, the house not only goes to the edge of the filled-in area but also has a deck that extends over the water.

The Howes employed an attorney in an unsuccessful effort to force Building Director Dave Jones to approve the two-story house. Spokane attorney Stan Schultz argued in a March 1992 letter that the county had no right to include the 10-foot waterfront setback in its building ordinance.

But Deputy Prosecutor Lloyd Nickel defended the setback in a memo. Even if the setback were improper, Nickel said, the Howes had no right to complain because they didn’t have “clean hands.”

“The Howes misstated the location of their structure on their building-permit application,” Nickel wrote. “It is difficult to believe this was inadvertent rather than intentional, particularly in light of the fact their footing was poured prior to inspection.”

No building permit would have been issued “if their true intentions were made known,” Nickel said.

Still, Lila Howe insisted in a brief telephone interview, “There was no dispute, and I have all of the permits for that.” She declined to discuss details.

The Howes apparently were able to sell the house because Stevens County took no enforcement action and the state granted a lease in January 1993 for the “aquatic land” on which the house is partially located.

County attorney Nickel said in his 1992 memo that the Building Department “does not intend to take any enforcement-type of action,” but Building Director Jones said enforcement is up to the prosecutor’s office.

County employees like Jones and Nickel are in a tough spot when it comes to enforcing land-use regulations. Their bosses are elected by people who generally show little desire to be regulated.

Violations are common at Deer Lake and elsewhere.

“I think both our department and the Road Department have had some frustrations that the county commissioners have granted variances to the road setbacks and the shoreline setbacks in the Deer Lake and Loon Lake areas,” Jones said. “We have historically recommended denial and still do.”

County officials not only failed to enforce their building code, but approved a property split that allowed the Howes to sell their new house and their old cabin separately. The Planning Department OK’d the split in May 1994 despite a formal objection by the state Ecology Department.

“The house on the proposed lot with lake frontage is built in violation of the Stevens County Building Code, the Shoreline Management Act and the (state) Hydraulics Code, since it was built on fill placed well into surface waters below the ordinary high water mark of Deer Lake,” the Ecology Department told county planners.

Planning Director Loren Wiltse said the house still is not eligible for “grandfather” status as a “legal, non-conforming use” under the county shoreline plan. That means the owners cannot legally replace the house if it is destroyed, or make major changes, without meeting all the current regulations.

Kenneth and Stacy Bartolotta paid $160,000 for the house even though the state Department of Natural Resources could require them to remove it when their 12-year lease of state land expires in 8-1/2 years. The lease calls for annual payments of $330 until next January, when the state may change the amount.

Stacy Bartolotta said she and her husband didn’t find out about the lease until an attorney told them about it when the sale closed.

Bartolotta said she worries about the lack of security, but “I like Lila and I don’t want to say nothing that might go against her.”

After conferring with her husband, Bartolotta declined to comment further.

The Bartolottas’ deed of trust lists the Howes as “beneficiaries,” suggesting the Howes financed the transaction themselves. A beneficiary in a deed of trust typically is a bank or other party that provided a loan for the purchase.

Lila Howe was a licensed real estate agent until November 1990, but neither real estate agents nor sellers had any legal duty until January 1995 to tell sellers about problems with a property.

The Howes sold the portion of their property with their old cabin to Michael and Cynthia Raymond for $47,000 in a June 1994 contract. Michael Raymond said he is generally satisfied with the transaction.

Public records show the Howes paid $25,000 in 1979 for the cabin and all their land at Deer Lake. They mortgaged the property for $52,000 in November 1988 - about the time the new house was built.

Allowing for the mortgage, the difference between what the Howes paid and what they charged the Raymonds and Bartolottas is $130,000.

If county officials had issued a certificate of occupancy, the lakefront house might have been “grandfathered” under the shoreline plan that was developed while Lila Howe was a Stevens County planning commissioner.

She was one of four members of the Shoreline Management Advisory Committee who withdrew their support for a shoreline proposal after it was sent to the county Planning Commission. On the Planning Commission, Howe continued to press for fewer restrictions and more local control.

When county commissioners finally adopted a plan in August 1992, 20 years later than state law required, Howe continued to fight it. She was the leading critic at a December 1992 hearing conducted by Ecology, which still hasn’t ratified the plan.

At the hearing, Howe attacked the plan for 15 minutes on grounds that it lacked public participation, that it lacked teeth in some areas and that it lacked local control.

A year earlier, Howe was one of three Planning Commission members who dissented in a vote to ask county commissioners to allocate more money to enforce existing land-use regulations. Loon Lake property owners were clamoring for new zoning regulations at the time.

“I was not an opponent of land-use (regulations),” Howe said before hanging up in a telephone interview earlier this month. “I was very much for land-use balance.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 Color) Graphic: Candidate’s Deer Lake property dispute