Environmental Review Ordered For Turtle Creek

In/Around Greenacres, Ponderosa, Otis Orchards, Orchard Avenue

A developer must write an environmental impact statement before he can build a 101-home subdivision in the Valley.

Concerned about the Turtle Creek development’s impact on schools, roads and neighboring land, Spokane County commissioners in December ordered an environmental review for the project.

Tuesday, they voted to require the more thorough impact statement from developer Richard Dahm.

The development, which would cover 39 acres at Eighth and Barker, was approved by the county’s hearing examiner committee in 1994. The Micaview Landowners Association appealed that decision to commissioners, and blasted the subdivision proposal during a five-hour December hearing.

Neighbors say their schools already are too crowded and their streets too congested.

In other action Tuesday, commissioners:

Denied a developer’s request to extend Sunderland Road in the Ponderosa neighborhood for access to three large lots. The road now ends with a cul-de-sac.

Neighbors said they fear the lots will be subdivided, bringing more traffic. Fifty-nine children live on Sunderland near the dead-end, they said.

The landowner has an easement for a road that would not be as direct as Sunderland, said county engineer Ron Hormann.

Commissioners said they didn’t want to encourage more development in Ponderosa until the neighborhood has better access to Dishman-Mica Road.

Approved a road improvement district to pave 1,000 feet of Canal Road in Otis Orchards. The owners of 22 lots will share $77,344 of the project’s cost; the county will pay $13,649.

Banned all trucks except those making local deliveries from portions of Montgomery Avenue, and Sargent, Marguerite and Hutchinson roads.

Neighbors fear the roads, all west of Argonne Road, will become congested with traffic as truck drivers look for ways to avoid construction delays on Argonne.

Banned parking on Gillis Road north of Sprague Avenue.