County ignoring codes

Mike Prager’s May 13 summary of the first city-county growth collaboration closes with: “Commissioner French said the county has sought to provide a full range of services in unincorporated urban areas, and he pointed to the county’s aquatics center on North Hatch Road as an example of that.”

We beg to differ with French’s “magnanimity.” Our North Hatch Road neighborhood continues to fight the county’s ignorance of, and deviations from, the codes they adopted as a model for responsible growth. Instead of correcting the Building and Planning Department’s mistakes, the commissioners are looking the other way as Landed Gentry Inc., a Burlington, Wash.-based developer, has been exempted from providing connectivity to future neighborhoods, encouraged to solicit the county for permission to eliminate code-required sidewalks and has proposed a road that does not meet the county’s own minimum standards per the 2010 road code.

All of this is taking place just 500 yards from the aquatics center referred to by French.

Based on our neighborhood’s experience with the commissioners and the Building and Planning Department, we applaud the city of Spokane for standing up to these officials whose ideal public service is “develop despite the cost to neighborhoods.”

Tina Wynecoop

Colbert