Development Plan Pits Landowners Against Planners

Some Airway Heights property owners south of U.S. Highway 2 are opposing the city’s growth management plan because it would allow industrial development near homes.

City officials want to discourage residential development in that area because it lies beneath the landing pattern for jets from Fairchild Air Force Base.

A dispute has simmered for more than a year between the landowners who want to keep their neighborhoods liveable and planners who believe south Airway Heights is a dangerous area for homes.

“We are not trying to move them out,” said Ron Hand, a city planner. “What we really want to do is not encourage new housing.”

The area in question involves property south of 18th Street between Russell and Lunstrom. It has about 200 residents.

One plan calls for designating the property as industrial with commercial uses allowed between U.S. 2 and 18th Street.

Another proposal would extend commercial uses to 21st Street, and make the land to the south industrial.

George Nadler, who owns seven residential lots in the area, said city planners are ignoring the wishes of the property owners to continue residential use of their land.

He said residents in the area depend on the low rents and it is unfair to bring manufacturing facilities into their neighborhood.

“They insist they are going to make that neighborhood industrial,” said Nadler, who is retired from Fairchild and now lives in Bayview, Idaho.

Nadler has argued in favor of extending the commercial designation farther to the south because retail businesses would be more compatible than manufacturing facilities.

The Planning Commission will hold its next hearing on the issue Monday at 6 p.m. in the community center across from City Hall. The comprehensive plan is the second item on the commission’s agenda.

The commission is fine-tuning the new comprehensive plan required under the state’s Growth Management Act.

City officials said they would like to encourage manufacturing and commercial uses south of U.S. Highway 2 to reduce the potential for deaths and injuries should an Air Force jet crash.

An Air Force study identified the area south of 18th Street as having a higher potential for crashes and higher noise levels. The Air Force recommends not allowing residential uses in high-danger zones.

No matter what the city decides, the landowners and residents will not be forced to move, Hand said.

Also, it is unlikely that industry would locate near the residences because Airway Heights still has plenty of open land near the railroad spur at the southern fringe of the city, Hand said.