9-Day Extension Granted For 5 Mile Developments

Public hearings concerning the development of three properties on Five Mile Prairie last week resulted in a nine-day extension for both sides to review and respond to new material.

During five hours of back-and-forth testimony before the county hearing examiner, developer Greg Yost’s team of lawyers and professionals squared off against the Five Mile Prairie Association and their team of seasoned residents. About 50 people attended the hearings.

The proposed developments - Willow Run, Granger Terrace and Prairie Breeze - form a square west of Five Mile Road, north of Johannsen Road and south of Hawthorne Road.

Each property has unique characteristics and particular arguments for and against its development. The hearings were combined, however, in the interest of time because several of the arguments overlap and because Yost is the developer for all three properties.

Here is a summary of each property and its arguments:

Willow Run

The Willow Run hearing was an appeal by the Five Mile Prairie Association of the approval of a proposed 238-lot manufactured home park on 68.1 acres.

At issue are concerns of vesting, clustering, density calculation and the adequacy of the environmental impact statement.

The main question is when a project is considered vested, meaning when it entered the building and planning system as a potential project. The distinction is important because the developer must follow the regulations that exist at the time the project is vested.

The Willow Run project was vested before the interim urban growth area regulations were adopted. So if the definition of when a project is vested is changed, Yost would have to create a new plan for the property with density calculated at one unit per five acres - allowing for substantially fewer mobile homes.

Such a decision could affect many pending mobile home parks in Spokane.

County policy states that a project is vested when it is “counter complete” - or when the applicant has filled out an application, paid the application processing fee and submitted maps and other necessary materials.

The Five Mile Association argues mobile home projects should be vested when applications are “technically complete,” meaning environmental impact studies, drainage and traffic analyses and other technical materials have also been completed and submitted.

Jim Craven, legal counsel for Yost, argued that vesting is a matter of law, and not an administrative determination. The designation of counter completeness has always been the triggering event, and so it should stand, he said.

“An applicant relies on a set package of rules and regulations… so he’s not shooting at a moving target as the application process continues,” Craven said.

Scott Brown, arguing for the Five Mile Association, said the county has been misapplying the standard of counter completeness with regard to manufactured home parks.

“There’s no way to tell if a manufactured home park complies with zone regulations at the time of counter completeness,” he said. He said mobile home parks have a different approval process than housing subdivisions, but that the county has uniformly been applying vesting rights.

With regard to density, the Willow Run plan shows slots for 238 mobile homes. Opponents said the correct density calls for 103 units.

Candace Dahlstrom argued for the Five Mile Association that developers incorrectly calculated allowable density by failing to deduct acreage for such things as open space, roads, ponds and easements.

“They used gross density when they should have used net (density),” she said.

She also claimed that Yost designed Willow Run with clustered dwellings to take advantage of open space, but that clustering is only allowed with planned urban developments.

Legal counsel for Yost, however, said that special permission is not needed for clustering and maintained their calculations were correct.

Granger Terrace and Prairie Breeze

The Granger Terrace and Prairie Breeze hearings concerned proposed preliminary plats. The Granger Terrace development divides approximately 35 acres into 29 lots for single-family residences. The Prairie Breeze development divides approximately 49 acres into 138 lots for single-family residences.

In her staff report, Tammy Jones, of the division of building and planning, noted several concerns of residents that pertained to both developments, including increased traffic, overcrowding, drainage and flooding and insufficient emergency services.

She said that Yost has agreed to pay the city’s voluntary, $1,430-per-unit impact fees for Five Mile Prairie improvements on things like sidewalks, streetlights, etc. She recommended both plans be approved as conditioned.

Impact fees paid by Yost would generate $575,000 for improvements on the prairie, which could be used to leverage additional private money. To not proceed with the projects would be a missed opportunity for needed funds, Craven said.

Five Mile residents, however, argued that roads should be upgraded and infrastructure in place before any more development is approved.

One 32-year resident of the Prairie discussed how she’s seen her neighborhood change, though the roads have remained the same.

“They were built as rural roads to serve a rural population,” she said.

Yost’s traffic engineer said the cumulative traffic impacts of the proposed developments need no mitigations. But Five Mile representatives said Yost’s traffic impact study was inaccurate because it failed to account for areas like Jesse’s Bluff that are planned but undeveloped.

Drainage and flooding have long been serious concerns on Five Mile Prairie. While engineers for Yost stated their surveys uncovered no groundwater on the properties, residents offered testimony of flooded basements.

Unlike other recent developments on the prairie, however, the proposed drainage system would not use dry wells. Instead, storm water would be swept away by gutters to a storm drain system to evaporation ponds to a detention basin. Engineer Greg Holder said water would be limited to pre-development levels and rates.

Concern also surrounded the environmental impact statements for all three of the planned developments. Five Mile representatives said the environmental impact statements for Yost’s projects were incomplete and held inadequate alternate mitigation measures. They also said the proposed developments fail to address the goals of Spokane’s comprehensive plan.

Jim Kolva, who drafted the environmental impact statement, said he believes the document is complete. Its purpose, he said, is to bring information to the public and decision makers for debate and discourse.

And to end that debate, Craven said, simply, that Yost has followed all the rules.

“The Prairie is zoned as urban,” he said. “(Yost) has complied with that which is there for him to comply with. That’s all we can legally ask.”

Five Mile Association chairman Steve Mumm disagreed.

“The rules must be followed. That’s what this country was founded on,” he said. “That’s what we’re here for.”

WHAT’S NEXT All rebuttals to recent hearings about development on Five Mile Prairie are due by 4 p.m. Friday. Spokane County Hearing Examiner Mike Dempsey has until mid-December to make a decision regarding the preliminary plats for the proposed Prairie Breeze and Granger Terrace developments on the prairie. He can, however, request extra time. There is no deadline for ruling on the appeal of the proposed Willow Run mobile home park.