State decides repeal of growth plans wrong

Ill-fated planning decisions on Five Mile Prairie and the West Plains are clinging to Spokane County commissioners like flypaper.

The Eastern Washington Growth Management Hearings Board ruled last year that commissioners improperly expanded “urban growth areas” without required studies and consultation.

After being slapped twice again for taking too long to fix the problem, commissioners decided early this year to repeal the growth-area expansions. That, too, was a mistake, the state growth board ruled this week.

Before commissioners moved to rescind the expansions, developers obtained “vested” rights to build low- and medium-density housing on 229 acres on Five Mile Prairie and 80 acres on the West Plains.

The Five Mile Prairie development involves unrelated projects in five separate growth-area expansions. One of the expansions created an urban island in a rural sea, near the intersection of Five Mile Prairie.

The West Plains expansion is east of Airway Heights and north of U.S. Highway 2, near Flint Road.

The expansions may cause urban densities in rural areas that don’t have the necessary services, the state growth board said. Commissioners can’t rescind the urban growth area expansions without dealing with the growth they’ve already allowed, the three-member panel said.

Although the state Growth Management Act doesn’t say how to shrink an urban growth area, the hearings board concluded commissioners must do pretty much the same things an expansion requires.

The state board members are former Spokane County Commissioner John Roskelley; former Spokane City Councilman Bob Dellwo; and Joyce Mulliken, a former state senator from Grant County.

Roskelley was on the county commission, along with Phil Harris and Kate McCaslin, when it accepted a county Planning Commission recommendation to deny developers’ requests for the UGA expansions. Todd Mielke and Mark Richard had replaced Roskelley and McCaslin when, threatened with a lawsuit by developers, commissioners decided to approve the expansions.

Since then, Harris has been replaced by Bonnie Mager. Before taking office in January, Mager was director of the Spokane Neighborhood Alliance, which joined the Palisades Neighborhood organization in challenging the urban growth area expansions.

Ironically, the two groups, represented by the Center for Justice, wound up arguing the county couldn’t rescind actions the groups thought were a bad idea.

“That’s essentially what we said,” Center for Justice attorney Rick Eichstaedt acknowledged. “We said, if the situation had been different, if there had been no vested properties or developments … then simply undoing the action might have been appropriate.”

But, with housing developments irrevocably approved, “you can’t ignore that reality,” Eichstaedt said.

Richard contends necessary services are available for the planned developments. He said commissioners decided to rescind the disputed urban growth area expansions because the state board set “completely unrealistic” deadlines for completing the requisite planning.

Commissioners feared failure to comply in time might prompt Gov. Chris Gregoire to withhold state revenue from the county, Richard said. Now the county again faces that possibility.

“One has to ask exactly how one is to come into compliance,” Richard said. “We just continue to be baffled by their decisions.”

The state growth board didn’t tell commissioners how to fix their “clearly erroneous” decision but gave them until Jan. 10 to get the job done.

Richard said he thinks it is “very possible” commissioners will appeal the ruling to Superior Court, “seeking an objective audience.”