Spokane County commissioners upheld an appeal filed by Micaview residents and reversed a zoning change for a 355-home subdivision planned for the south Valley.

Members of the Micaview Landowners Association filed the appeal after the county hearing examiner approved developer Richard Dahm’s request last spring to change zoning classifications to higher densities in the proposed 150-acre subdivision on a ridge east of Sullivan Road at about 16th Avenue.

The high-density development would have encouraged urban sprawl and been detrimental to the area’s rural lifestyle, the landowners association argued.

The commissioners agreed and upheld their appeal last Tuesday.

“I agree with the association’s conclusion that this type of development, one that requires the extension of costly services through undeveloped land, clearly constitutes sprawl under the definition of the comprehensive plan and is contrary to the public good,” said Commissioner John Roskelley, who was reading from a five-page decision he crafted.

The Micaview Landowners Association has been fighting to block development of Morningside Heights for more than a year. The high-density development proposed for the southeastern Valley would have unleashed an avalanche of residential sprawl through the Saltese Basin and Greenacres, they claimed.

Dahm argued that the development was consistent with the county’s comprehensive plan. An extensive trail system and six-acre park planned for the subdivision would have added to the community’s quality of life, Dahm’s attorney told the commissioners during a hearing on the issue held last month.

Maintaining the area’s rural character is more important, Roskelley said.

“This area and all land to the south and southeast is rural by every definition of the word, making this development an important buffer from suburban living to rural living,” he said.

, DataTimes