Boundary Stakes County Commissioners Are Preparing To Make A High-Stakes Decision On The Urban Growth Boundaries For Valley

Otis Orchards, Greenacres, Saltese, Ponderosa and Liberty Lake south of Sprague Avenue ought to be out. Most of the urban core of the Spokane Valley should be in.

At least, that’s how the regional Growth Management Act steering committee sees the interim urban growth area boundaries shaping up. Now it’s up to county commissioners to agree or disagree.

And the decision won’t be easy.

“The stakes for the Valley are huge,” said Robert Henry, a Valley resident and advertising executive who is a non-voting member of the steering committee.

Balancing housing, transportation and water quality needs in the Valley will be among the major challenges the commissioners face when they meet Dec. 27 to decide where to draw interim urban growth boundaries. Significant land and tax base will also be at stake.

Last month, the steering committee recommended that county commissioners limit urban development to neighborhoods that will have public sewers within 15 years.

The steering committee has recommended Sullivan Road as the eastern edge of the bulk of the urban growth area. However, the growth area would extend eastward from Sullivan to Liberty Lake along a narrow corridor between Interstate 90 and roughly Appleway Avenue. That piece would connect to a chunk of Liberty Lake between Sprague and the freeway.

Between the city limits and Sullivan, the northern boundary of the urban growth area would take in the Northwood and Pasadena Park areas, then jog south and follow the river east to Sullivan. The southern boundary would include the Edgecliff area between the city limits and the Dishman Hills Natural Area; from Dishman Hills east to Sullivan, 32nd Avenue would generally be the southern boundary.

The recommendation has many Valley neighborhood groups and preservationists singing its praises.

Many developers and business owners are not as happy, arguing that the boundaries are too tight.

Mandated by state law, urban growth areas are designed to control sprawl. The act stipulates that those areas be no larger than necessary to house the people moving into the area during the next 20 years.

In the Valley, that means leaving room for an additional 27,000 people.

According to an environmental impact statement commissioned by the steering committee, the area within the urban growth boundaries would accommodate only about 14,000 people under existing suburban development densities. To absorb all 27,000 new residents, allowable densities would need to be increased in some areas from 3.5 dwelling units per acre to between 5 and 7 units per acre.

Without such increases in allowable building densities, housing costs will soar artificially, Henry predicted.

“If we restrict the land supply in the market then housing costs will go up,” he said.

Eventually, that will drive growth - residential, commercial and industrial - east into Idaho, an area not governed by a growth management act, Henry said. Those people will take the tax base with them and leave behind unresolved transportation, air and water quality problems.

It could also force more commuters onto an already busy Interstate 90, increasing the likelihood of additional air pollution problems.

Less restrictive urban areas will keep growth in the Valley and housing costs manageable by preventing artificial inflation, Henry said.

“The government doesn’t enter into the equation near as intrusively as it does when you draw small, tight boundaries,” he said.

Not everyone agrees.

Setting large boundaries is dangerous, said Linda Tasca, another Valley resident and non-voting member of the steering committee.

Erring on the conservative side is easier to recover from than starting too big, Tasca said.

”(The boundaries) can be moved either direction,” she said. “It’s harder to pull them back in than let them out.”

Outside the urban boundaries, new development will be limited to lots 10 acres or larger. Land that is already subdivided is exempt from the restrictions.

That will be just fine with Tasca and the other residents of Micaview who successfully kept the Greenacres neighborhood out of the steering committee’s recommended urban growth boundaries. The group also plans to voice its concerns to commissioners who have the final say on where the boundaries are set.

“We’ve got an area that we think is semi-rural in nature,” Tasca said. “We’ve always thought that it should not be zoned for urban development based on its character.”

Hundreds of Liberty Lake residents feel just as strongly about preventing their neighborhoods south of Sprague Avenue from being designated urban. About 340 residents there signed a petition urging commissioners to keep the area free of future urban development.

They also turned out in droves to public meetings to argue that further development would be detrimental to the fragile lake. A similar push is planned for the county commissioners.

“The lake simply can’t tolerate additional urban development,” said Paul Humphreys, a resident of the lake community who has been heading up the effort.

Meanwhile, on the west side of the Valley, a showdown is shaping up over the Yardley industrial area. The city and county both covet the tax-rich area, currently serviced by county agencies and in the city’s sewer plans.

It has been estimated that Yardley represents more than $1 billion in assessed value, or about $4 million in annual property tax revenue.

If Yardley winds up as part of the city’s urban growth area, it is likely to be annexed. That would strike a financial blow to county coffers.

One of the biggest losers would be Valley Fire which could expect up to a $400,000 drop in tax revenue, said Valley Fire Chief Pat Humphries. The library district also would take a smaller hit.

“When it really gets down to it, it’s the commercial and industrial areas that pay for services,” Humphries said.

Humphries hopes to hammer out an agreement similar to one the city negotiated with Fire District No. 9 up north. The deal would allow Valley Fire to continue to service Yardley.

Without such an agreement, Humphries said the area risks duplicating services. He saw it happen about four years ago in Issaquah, where, through a combination of annexation, trust and personality issues, the city department and county fire district ended up with stations facing each other from opposite sides of the street.

“That’s not good government,” Humphries said. “That’s what I want to avoid.”

County commissioners also will hope to avoid bad government.

“When they draw that line there are going to be winners and losers,” Henry said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo