Commissioners Reject Glenrose Development Hasson Says Area Not Ready For 41-Home Project

Spokane County commissioners loved the concept but hated what a proposed 41-home subdivision would do to Glenrose Prairie.

So they shot down the project Tuesday, sending landowner KXLY back to the drawing board.

The broadcasting company wanted to build the upscale Morgan Murphy Estates on land it owns east of the Spokane city limits off 25th Avenue. Home prices would have started at $250,000.

The plan was to cluster homes on one end and leave 70 percent of the 210-acre parcel as open space and a migration corridor for deer and elk.

Neighbors were not impressed.

They showed up en masse last month at a public hearing to complain of potential problems with traffic, wastewater disposal, storm water runoff and the lack of an existing drinking water system.

East Spokane Water District No. 1 had offered to extend its lines to the new subdivision, but critics said that would invite urban sprawl.

County commissioner Steve Hasson noted that Glenrose Prairie is outside the urban impact area being drawn in conjunction with the state Growth Management Act.

“It really looks nice,” he said of the project. “It’s a very good concept. But it’s an area premature for development.”

A telephone call to KXLY General Manager Steve Herling was not returned Tuesday evening.

His development consultant, Cathy Ramm, argued last month that the project is not only innovative but is preferable to building 41 houses on five-acre lots, some of which are too steep and erosive.

That fact was not lost on commissioner Phil Harris, who noted that the project still meets the one-home-per-five-acre-lot zoning density set by the county.

It’s conceivable, he said, that the project could be resubmitted to the board with five-acre lots instead of the clustered concept that features open space.

“I was very impressed with the conceptual plan of Morgan Murphy Estates,” agreed commissioner John Roskelley. “It made my decision much more difficult.”

Roskelley said the plan’s fatal flaw, however, was the installation of water lines outside the urban impact area, which violates the spirit of the county’s comprehensive land-use plan.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Map of area