Ponderosa development argued
After a year and a half and thousands of dollars in legal costs, homeowners in the Ponderosa neighborhood and lawyers for developer Lancze Douglass had their day in Superior Court on Friday.
The oral arguments – roughly 15 minutes from each side – were familiar, with many of the points surrounding whether enough information was presented to the hearing examiner at a June hearing to prove residents would be able to evacuate quickly in the event of a large fire.
“We did the studies, we did the analysis, we presented it to the county, and they didn’t have anything to rebut it,” Douglass’ lawyer, Michael Murphy, told Judge Salvatore Cozza.
A railroad separates the Ponderosa neighborhood from the rest of Spokane Valley, and traffic into and out of the area is confined to South Bowdish and South Schafer roads.
Murphy said studies funded by the developer are sufficient to prove that even with the new development, the neighborhood could be evacuated in 30 minutes without adding any additional access roads.
Residents have scoffed at that claim as they’ve fought the proposal in every venue available to them.
A fire torched 1,500 acres there in 1991, and residents argue that allowing more houses in an area with limited access could be disastrous.
“The road system is inadequate to handle an emergency as it is now,” said Brian McGinn, the neighborhood’s lawyer. “The county didn’t critically assess the evacuation evaluation.”
Cozza asked for clarification on the parties’ statements here and there, but overall his comments were few. At the end of the hearing, he said he would issue his decision in two weeks or so.
He will consider the official record in the hearing examiner case, some 2,500 pages, to see if county Hearing Examiner Mike Dempsey erred in approving specific aspects of the project.
One of those areas, the neighbors contend, is consideration for wildlife and environmentally sensitive areas where the subdivision would go.
“The hearing examiner apparently gave very little credence to any of that,” McGinn said.
Douglass’ lawyer said that’s because the project’s layout protects areas cited by environmental agencies and that the plan meets legal requirements.
“The notion that … habitat is going to be destroyed is nonsense,” Murphy said.
He also discounted McGinn’s argument that the development should have been considered jointly with Douglass’ plans to build 79 homes next to it that sit inside the Spokane Valley city limits.
“The reality is, this is a smokescreen to stop or stall the project,” Murphy said.
To the neighborhood, though, it only makes sense to consider the impact of all the potential houses when evaluating the project’s impacts, McGinn said.
About 30 neighbors and a city attorney for Spokane Valley were among those in the audience at the hearing.
“I think it went pretty good,” neighbor Judy Belous said, but she stopped short of predicting how the appeal will go.
“It’s up to the judge to decide,” she said.