Subdivision Of Rural Lands Under County Review
The family farm failing and his elderly mother’s safety net slipping away, Mike Taylor was forced to sell.
The Spokane engineer hoped to secure his mother financially by dividing her quarter-mile section below Mount Spokane into 16 upscale hobby farms at 10 acres each.
Then regulatory reality hit like a runaway tractor.
Spokane County commissioners on Jan. 16 slapped an emergency moratorium on rural property divisions that for years had been excluded from expensive and lengthy reviews.
The issue has evolved into one more battle pitting proponents of managed growth and environmental safeguards against developers and private property rights activists.
It boils to a head Tuesday when county commissioners vote on a new large-lot ordinance. At issue is whether dividing land into 10-acre parcels will receive continued approval without regulatory review.
Many lots created without review
The moratorium was only the first of Taylor’s problems.
Since he applied for a subdivision exemption before the moratorium, he learned he would be grandfathered in.
But then Taylor faced another hurdle: A survey of his mother’s land came up five feet short of being a full quarter-mile section.
Taylor would have to lose two of the parcels and move a road 30 feet, planners told him.
The cost? About $180,000 more than the $100,000 he and his two brothers already had sunk in to the project.
“I’m thinking, ‘If I get any more help from government, I’m going to commit suicide,”’ jokes Taylor, 52, owner of Taylor Engineering, 106 W. Mission.
Taylor says his nightmare finally ended after the county responded to “reason” and exempted him from subdivision review.
Such exemptions are common nationwide and were intended to help farmers break up their land hassle-free and pass it down to their children.
But most counties in Washington and throughout the West apply them only to larger lots.
Spokane County is one of a handful of counties in the state - and by far the most populated - to allow land divisions as small as 10 acres without oversight. The rule has attracted out-of-town developers in droves.
Once land is divided into 10-acre parcels, buyers then are allowed to divide their lots into five-acre halves - also without review.
“That’s amazing,” says Cindy Houben, who manages growth for Pitkin County, Colo., in Aspen. “It just surprises me because of the impacts created by that level of development.”
Houben’s county started a growth spurt in the mid-1970s, so it went to 35-acre minimum land divisions without review. Even that is causing headaches, she says.
Pitkin County has 12,661 residents. Spokane County has more than 400,000.
Most Washington and North Idaho counties went to 20-acre minimums years ago. Mostly rural Douglas County, Wash., plans to go to 160 acres.
“I don’t know what Wild West that Spokane County is coming from, but we’ve got to get a handle on our growth,” says County Commissioner John Roskelley.
“We’re in the Dark Ages over here. We let the development community dictate how we’re going to run our county.”
Compromise expected Tuesday
By early this year, applications for exemptions from subdivision rules were getting out of hand and roads were suffering, says Jim Manson, director of Spokane County building and planning.
So commissioners temporarily halted all review-free subdivisions of 40 acres or less.
On Tuesday, the board is expected to compromise on a new ordinance that will end the moratorium and, county staffers hope, encourage managed growth.
Here’s what planners have crafted: Subdivisions creating lots of 20 acres or more would be exempted from review, but 10-acre splits would be allowed only if property owners agreed to pay for future road improvements.
That’s not enough for county engineer Bill Johns, who wants all proposed 10-acre tracts reviewed.
Every time the county allows a new parcel, it creates 10 vehicle trips a day on already-stressed roads, Johns says. While builders are required to comply with stringent road standards, county collector roads that feed new developments get hammered.
Someone has to pay for improvements. Johns thinks it should be the developers.
“For roads, the certificates of exemption just kill us,” he says. “I guess ideally we’d have no certificates of exemption as far as roads are concerned.”
Small lots could still be developed, he says, but only after they survive the review process that brings county planning and building officials into a project up front.
Regardless of exemptions from subdivision review, developers still must comply with zoning requirements and obtain permits for water, septic tanks and home-building.
Commission Chairman Phil Harris made it clear last week that he champions subdivision exemptions because developers already face onerous restrictions by an overreaching government.
“We can’t just plunder the lands of the people without just compensation,” he says.
In a good-natured sparring match with Roskelley, Harris offered to show the conservation-minded commissioner the 5th and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution - the ones that protect property and citizen rights.
“We’ve got to get back to government working for the people and not the other way around,” Harris told Roskelley.
He says the county is trying to punish every land owner for the sins of only a handful of greedy developers.
Commissioner Steve Hasson, a supporter of the development community, favors allowing 10-acre parcels without review, but only if developers ensure that the infrastructure accommodates growth.
“Sometimes these developers are just out to make a quick buck,” Hasson says. “Now it’s just become a great big loophole.”
Not for Taylor.
His SaddleRidge Estates, about six miles east of the Mead Airport, will be a gated community with underground utilities.
“It’ll look like Lexington, Ky.,” Taylor says. “White fences 54 inches tall will be required. There will be miles and miles of interior bridle trails to keep children off the highway.”
Taylor sold the land to builders for $70,000-$110,000 per parcel. Builders will ask about $400,000 per home.
“It’s been an adventure,” Taylor says of his foray into development. “My mother is 82. I’m just trying to get something out of the farm for my mother.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo Graphic: Splitting acres
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: MEETING The commission meeting begins at 5 p.m. in the lower level of the Public Works Building, 1026. W. Broadway Ave.