Sprawling South Micaview Residents Fear Morningside Heights Will Open The Floodgates To New Development In Semirural Southeast Area

Is Morningside Heights simply another middle-class subdivision proposed for the Spokane Valley, or the keystone that could unleash an avalanche of residential sprawl in the Saltese basin and Greenacres?

The answer depends on who’s handling the question.

A recently released report paid for by developer Richard Dahm states that the 335-home Morningside Heights subdivision is just another step in the orderly development of the Valley.

The proposed subdivision, which would be built on about 150 acres on a ridge east of Sullivan Road at about 16th Avenue, is not the key to anything, states the report, which was prepared by Ramm Associates, a firm hired by Dahm. The current real estate market and existing zoning in the Saltese and Greenacres neighborhoods dictate that the area will go to residential development, Dahm said said in an interview this week.

Morningside Heights has nothing to do with that, he added.

“That area’s going to develop, no matter who does it,” Dahm said.

Critics of high-density residential development in the southeastern Valley called Morningside Heights the beginning of the end for their semi-rural neighborhood.

Linda Tasca, a member of the Micaview Landowners Association board of directors, said Morningside Heights would give Dahm a bookend for Turtle Creek, his 101-home subdivision near Eighth and Barker.

The logical thing would be for the people with bare land between the bookends, including Dahm, to develop, develop, develop, Tasca said.

The truck farms and large-acre lots in Greenacres and Saltese would be gone, with urban type neighborhoods taking their place, she said.

Schools, roads and existing neighborhoods would be devastated, Tasca said.

“What you’re going to have is another Liberty Lake out here in Greenacres,” she said.

Dahm’s report on the impacts of Morningside Heights acknowledges there is a lot of undeveloped ground - nearly 1,300 acres - between Turtle Creek and the site of his new proposal.

It also points out that the county set up the area to be developed.

Under current zoning, more than 1,800 homes could be built on the land between Turtle Creek and Morningside Heights, the report states.

“The potential for growth inducement in the area already exists due to the existing combination of county plans and regulations that provide the opportunity for subdivisions in the area,” the report states.

What’s more, Dahm said, the real estate market is driving homebuilders to the east and south.

“That’s where people want to live,” he said.

Tasca agreed that the county’s comprehensive plan and zoning code allow high-intensity residential development in the area.

She added that she and her group feel that designation is a mistake. They’ve been fighting for the past several years to have it changed.

Eighteen hundred new homes in that area would mean about 3,500 new residents, 1,200 new students in the Central Valley School District and thousands more cars on the roads.

County Commissioner Steve Hasson questioned whether the Saltese and Greenacres areas are the wisest place for such growth.

Hasson said there are undeveloped parcels in the center of the Valley that could be built upon with fewer impacts.

Developing Greenacres and the Saltese basin would contribute to unnecessary sprawl, he said.

“Why take good farmland and encroach upon it?” the commissioner said. “You just can’t allow this leap-frogging sprawl.”

Morningside Heights is just one more space in Dahm’s connect-the-dots plan for marching through the southeast Valley, the commissioner said.

“He wants to use that as the matrix from which he can develop all the rest of that land,” Hasson said.

Dahm readily admits he has other developments planned in the area.

“The issue is we have property, and we have the right to do with it what the law allows,” Dahm said.

But he stressed that he is not a build-and-run developer only out to make a buck.

Local officials, neighborhood groups and developers should stop bickering and sit down together to come up with solutions to the problems growth brings, Dahm said.

A good place to start would be helping local school districts get construction bonds passed, he said.

But fighting every development proposed in the Valley just drives up the cost of housing and accomplishes little, Dahm said.

Tasca agreed that development is inevitable, but said she thinks there are better places to do it than her neighborhood.

“Any urban development, to our way of thinking, is too much,” Tasca said. “I am not anti-development.”

Like Hasson, Tasca suggested that Dahm look elsewhere.

“I just don’t think it belongs here,” she said.

Dahm said that’s exactly where it belongs.

“The next logical place to see something happen is up there,” he said.

It’ll be up to the county hearing examiner committee to make that determination.

The committee, which makes decisions on land-use proposals in the unincorporated areas of Spokane County, will likely hold a hearing on Morningside Heights late this year or early in 1996.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 photos (1 color) Graphic: Map of area

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: COMMENTS ACCEPTED Copies of the draft environmental impact statement for the proposed 335-home Morningside Heights subdivision are available for public review at the Spokane County planning office, 1026 W. Broadway, and at the Spokane Public Library downtown. Written comment can be sent to: Spokane County Planning Department, 1026 W. Broadway, Spokane, WA 99260-0240, and will be accepted through Nov. 20.