County Keeps Rules On Stormwater Intact Commissioners Hold Off Ok’Ing Exemptions

Thu., Jan. 28, 1999

By Dan Hansen danh@spokesman.com

Spokane County commissioners aren’t ready to ease up on Moran Prairie development - yet.

For the second time in two months, commissioners last week delayed allowing exemptions to emergency stormwater regulations for the flood-prone neighborhood.

Commissioners asked county engineers to add minor changes requested by neighbors to assure that the county maintains tight control over growth. They made a similar request in November.

The emergency stormwater regulations, in effect since May 1997, allow development on the prairie but only with large evaporation ponds to collect runoff. Those regulations are designed to prevent worse problems before the county develops a longterm solution to the flooding that sometimes fills yards and basements.

Developer Rich Naccarato requested that the county allow the use of infiltration ponds if developers can prove their projects won’t aggravate flooding. The grassy depressions, called “swales” in government lingo, use far less land than evaporation ponds but are less efficient at trapping water.

Naccarato hopes to move ahead with a proposed development at 57th and Regal. His plans are for stores, offices and 151 apartment units on 27 acres.

He obtained a zone change for the project last year and negotiated with neighbors over the type of businesses and style of buildings allowed. Getting a county exemption from the stormwater regulations is his last governmental hurdle.

Naccarato said told commissioners last week that meeting the requirements for an exemption would be “very time consuming, very extensive … and to be quite honest, very expensive to do.”

His attorney, Rick Dullanty, said he doubted more than a handful of landowners could qualify. Naccarato, whose land is geologically different from the most flood-prone areas of the prairie, is confident he will be one of those few.

Moran Prairie residents who testified didn’t oppose the change, but they asked commissioners to tighten up the rules for testing the water-absorbing ability of soils and notifying neighbors before an exemption is granted.

Commissioner Phil Harris voted to adopt the changes as they were presented Tuesday, saying the county could face lawsuits from developers if it doesn’t ease its regulations. Commissioners Kate McCaslin and John Roskelley voted no, saying they want the regulations fine-tuned to solve the neighbors’ concerns.

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