Ferry County Has Growing Pains Expansion Into Rural Areas May Cost State Funding, Says Board

Ferry County has been found in violation of the state Growth Management Act and eventually could lose hundreds of thousand dollars in state financial support.

The three-person Eastern Washington Growth Management Hearings Board says county officials have complied with many aspects of the law but have rejected its core requirement to prevent urban growth in rural areas.

The board gave the county three months to comply, but it jumped the gun Wednesday by sending a letter asking Gov. Gary Locke to consider imposing financial sanctions.

“We’re kind of confused,” County Commissioner Gary Kohler said. “I don’t know what this means. We thought we had 90 days.”

Kohler said he regrets his decision six years ago to sign up for the state growth management program, which promised money and local control.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” County Commission Chairman Jim Hall said. “I can only tell you we are not at all happy.”

Curlew resident Gary Woodmansee, who filed an appeal that prompted the ruling, couldn’t be reached for comment.

The growth board ordered Ferry County to add a “rural element” to its comprehensive plan, designating areas in which only rural uses would be allowed.

County officials also were told to “encourage development in urban areas where adequate public facilities and services can be provided, and reduce the inappropriate conversion of undeveloped land into sprawling low-density development.”

Ferry County’s single incorporated city, Republic, is the only “urban growth area” that satisfies the requirements of the Growth Management Act. The county has several unincorporated communities, though, with varying degrees of commercial development.

After an earlier adverse ruling by the Growth Management Hearings Board, county officials proposed a “rural service area” designation for unincorporated communities, such as Curlew, Pine Grove and Malo.

The board approved that idea, but insisted that the county set borders for the rural service areas and limit commercial development to “uses dependent upon a rural area or to serve the needs of the residents of the rural area.”

County commissioners chose to abandon the idea and insist that growth restrictions are unconstitutional and against the will of most county residents.

Hall said it appeared that most of the county’s unincorporated communities already have a grocery store and a gas station, which are about all that would be allowed in the rural service areas.

“Ferry County doesn’t have a whole lot of population, and we can’t understand why we have to do the same things that a more populated county has to abide by,” Kohler said. “If people want to have a business of some sort in their home, let ‘em have it. I don’t know why they’ve all got to go to town.”

More development would be allowed in “urban growth areas,” but those must have infrastructure such as utilities and more police protection than is currently available, Hall said. “It could be very expensive.”

He said the clincher was an “11th hour” complaint from the Colville Confederated Tribes, whose reservation covers the southern half of the county.

“They were concerned that, if we adopted these, we would run them down into the reservation - which we probably would,” Hall said.

He said commissioners had little enthusiasm for rural service areas anyway, and didn’t want to compound the disputes they already have with the tribal government.

Hall said he is inclined to fight the state requirements.

“If we lose it, we lose it,” he said. “I’m going to be up for election next year, and if people don’t like it, they can throw me out of office. At least I’ll know I was true to the people who put me in office and true to myself.”

He wishes hearings board members also had to stand for election. Appointed by Democratic governors, the board is composed of former Spokane County Commissioner Skip Chilberg, former Spokane state Rep. Dennis Dellwo and Wenatchee civic activist Judy Hall.

, DataTimes