County’s Growth Plan Ok’d Ferry County Faced Sanctions For Not Limiting Rural Growth

Ferry County is back in the good graces of the Eastern Washington Growth Management Hearings Board.

The county is now in compliance with a requirement that it limit urban development in rural areas, the growth board has ruled.

The ruling eliminates the threat of sanctions that could have cost the county millions of dollars in state tax support. Board members invited Gov. Gary Locke last summer to consider financial sanctions against the county when commissioners refused to limit rural development.

Commissioners changed their position after being threatened with sanctions and discovering new legislation that strengthened their hand. The Growth Management Act was amended last year to permit more development than previously would have been allowed.

The rural-development dispute was the last issue remaining from an appeal by resident Gary Woodmansee and a few others who called themselves Friends of Ferry County. The growth board said the county satisfied other growth-management requirements, but failed in its duty to prevent urban sprawl.

When the county proposed a plan to comply, Friends of Ferry County called it inadequate and unclear.

Growth board members said the critics raised legitimate concerns that the county’s proposed “rural area development” boundaries seem larger than necessary to meet growth needs for the next 20 years. But the development areas are properly limited to existing rural communities, the board ruled.

Board members - Skip Chilberg and Dennis Dellwo of Spokane, and Judy Wall of Wenatchee - found only one remaining fault in the county plan. Aerial photos and maps used to identify the development boundaries don’t show property lines.

The growth board said the problem can be fixed without expensive surveys, though. The board gave the county two months to draw the boundaries on existing assessor’s maps.

, DataTimes