Golf Course Development Finds Itself In County Trap Permitting Flap Prompts Lawsuit

A battle is brewing in Spokane County over a proposed par-3 golf course - not over whether the project should be built, but over how the paperwork should be filled out.

Warren and Sylvia Riddle want to convert 20 acres of farm and hog pasture at 13711 E. Mt. Spokane Park Drive to a golf course. Spokane County staff have said they would like to see that golf course built, as well. But last Friday, at a marathon special meeting in the county’s Public Works Building, the two sides could agree on little else.

While the Riddles waved permits issued for the project, county staff, including Public Works Director Gary Oberg, Environmental Programs Administrator Tammie Williams and County Engineer Bill Johns told the couple their permits were incomplete because of application omissions and a lack of other required permits.

What had started as a session to solve the Riddles’ permit problems quickly degenerated into argument. On Tuesday, the Riddles sued the county over the issue.

Sylvia Riddle said she was frustrated with never-ending permit requirements for the property, which spans Deadman Creek. She likened the experience to cartoon character Charlie Brown’s repeated attempts to kick the football that Lucy always pulled away at the last second.

“Every time we’ve gotten one more document from (the county), they are saying, `Oops there’s one more,”’ said Riddle. “We’re just not willing to let them pull the football out from us one more time and one more time and one more time.”

County staff says the problem isn’t that the golf course shouldn’t be built, but that incomplete information was provided in some permit applications and other permits have not yet been issued.

For instance, Williams said, the Riddles didn’t indicate in their state Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) checklist that they would be building footbridges over Deadman Creek. Williams said the bridges must comply with county and state regulations.

Work in that area, Williams said, also requires permits from the state Department of Ecology and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“All along we’ve just been offering to help, but we’ve just met resistance,” said Williams. “I just wish that they would comply with the permits and they could move forward with it.”

Spokane County has issued a stop-work order on the project until the required permits have been issued.

Dick Heckroth, business retention and expansion director at the Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce, said it’s not unusual for property owners to become confused over the red tape involved in getting permits for projects on their property. That’s why the Chamber is working with developers, Spokane County and the city of Spokane to streamline the permitting process.

Not all the fault with the process is at the government level, he added.

Though he said he is not familiar with the Riddles’ case, Heckroth said developers can make mistakes.

“What I’ve discovered in my working with the county,” said Heckroth, “is that at least half the problem is with the applicant, because someone didn’t fill out the paperwork accurately.”

The chamber, he added, often helps resolve permit disputes, but when acrimony leads to legal action there is little his office can do.

Riddle conceded there may have been confusion over the project’s scope during the permitting process, but added if someone at the county had closely followed the golf course through the permitting process omissions or mistakes could have been caught and corrected earlier, saving them both time and money.

“If they wanted us to get all these other permits,” she asked, “why didn’t they tell us way back when?”

Now, she said, the county must honor the permits it issued.

But she said she doesn’t trust the county to resolve the problem. Signs on the property accuse County Commissioner John Roskelley of getting in the way of a solution.

Roskelley, however, said his only involvement was to ask staff what was happening with the project after a constituent complained about it to him. He has not talked to the Riddles.

One loser in the dispute may be the environment. The Riddles and county staff agree the golf course, with natural grasses and trees near the creek banks, could be better for water quality and wildlife than continuing to plow the land.

Now Riddle said she and her husband are planning to remove 200 acres of land across Mt. Spokane Park Drive from the proposed golf course from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program.

Meanwhile, Oberg said he and other county staff will continue to try to resolve issues over development of the golf course.

“The process, I believe, is working, and we are doing whatever we can to work with them,” he said, “but apparently there is some perceived paranoia with this project.”