No Business Should Break Covenant No Adult Homes Homeowners Justified In Their Stand

Once there was a town where property developers identified a perfect location for new homes.

Even though it would be decades before American communities would confront the hornet’s nest known as zoning, these developers had vision enough to worry about protecting the area’s residential character.

So they adopted a covenant prohibiting any building there from being used “for business purposes of any kind.” A harness shop couldn’t move in next door, for instance.

Years passed. The town grew. The covenant was observed, and the area became an established neighborhood.

One day a supermarket chain announced plans to build there. The neighbors objected. They had nothing against supermarkets, but the change in character troubled them.

They couldn’t match the supermarket’s lawyer power but they launched a grassroots campaign and forced the supermarket to back down. It was hailed as a just outcome.

This editorial isn’t about a low-income neighborhood and a supermarket. Actually it’s about an affluent South Hill neighborhood, but the principle is the same.

Last fall LeAnn Riley bought a home in the area near Manito Park, planning to open a business despite the restrictive covenant.

Riley’s business is an adult family home, a place for senior citizens who need some help to get along, but not institutionalization. She operates three other such homes in Spokane, but this time the neighbors objected.

These neighbors do have the resources to hire a lawyer, and did. Now a clumpy blanket of guilt has been draped over them. They are portrayed as insensitive to the elderly residents whom Riley would charge $2,800 a month.

Homes such as Riley’s are legitimate, necessary enterprises. Some 240 of them (including Riley’s three) operate in Spokane County and officials say more are being licensed all the time.

Critics say that shows how intolerant the neighbors are. In fact, it shows that this specific adult family home isn’t essential.

The South Hill neighbors’ financial comfort entitles them to no greater rights than anyone else. But neither should it oblige them to ignore a covenant that has preserved their neighborhood’s residential character for nearly a century.

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see headline: A higher covenant: Love thy neighbor

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