Panel Recommends No-Shooting Zone For Highland Estates

Sat., Nov. 18, 2000

By Lorie Hutson lorieh@spokesman.com (509) 459-5446

A Spokane County board agreed this week that shooting should be banned in the Highland Estates neighborhood.

The No Shooting Advisory Committee will recommend that county commissioners add the subdivision on the rural edge of the Spokane Valley to the no-shooting zone.

“I can certainly see their concern with high-powered rifles and pistols,” said Spokane County Sheriff’s Deputy Jerry Brady, a member of the advisory committee, as he looked at an aerial map of the area.

The board also will ask commissioners to outlaw everything except hunting with shotguns on 200 acres to the west of the 80-plus homes in Highland Estates. Shooting is already prohibited by the homeowners association for the land to the east.

The no-shooting zone would extend north from Trent Avenue to the first set of power lines that bisects the area.

About half of the homeowners in the Highland Estates signed a petition asking the county to ban shooting in the area after a deer was killed near one of the homes in the subdivision last fall.

They were surprised to find out that dense neighborhoods outside the county’s no-shooting zone are not added automatically. The boundaries were established in the late 1960s or early 1970s, said Bob Brueggeman, chairman of the advisory committee. More than 50 percent of the land owners in an area must sign a petition before the advisory board will consider adding a neighborhood to the no-shooting zone.

Advisory board members said there are many factors they have to consider before they agree to limit the areas open to hunting. More and more animals are being driven out of their natural habitats as homes are built in wooded areas. The board weighs the topography of an area, density of homes and safety.

Also, they have to consider landowners’ rights before they agree to close an area to shooting, board members said. Some people own large tracts so they can hunt on it.

Pauline Lundy, who owns the 200 acres west of Highland Estates, was upset after finding out about the advisory committee’s recommendation this week.

She said she was not told about the meeting.

“How can they decide what they are going to do on my land without informing me of a hearing? That is not the democratic way,” she said.

Her husband, Harold Lundy, was the developer of Highland Estates. He died last year.

County commissioners will hold a public hearing on the plan to ban shooting before a final decision is made. Lundy said she plans to testify against the change.

The hearing was not scheduled immediately.

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