Two development plans tweaked

Spokane County commissioners approved several comprehensive plan amendments Monday, but not before changing two controversial proposals.

Commissioners granted requests from property owners on Moran Prairie in south Spokane and the North Hatch neighborhood to the north of Spokane’s city limits. But there was a hitch.

They authorized lower levels of development on both pieces of property than what the owners requested.

The applicants, the Cordill Family Trust and Don Jacobson, had asked that their properties be redesignated “regional commercial,” which would have allowed the most intense commercial development, such as malls or superstores. Commissioners granted them changes to “community commercial,” which allows smaller scale buildings like grocery stores and restaurants.

Wal-Mart, or a store like it, was the prospect that Commissioner Kate McCaslin cited as reason to limit the properties to the community commercial level.

“I will not be the one who drives by that property 15 years from now and sees a Wal-Mart Superstore. I just could not live with myself,” McCaslin said of the 18-acre former Jacobson’s Greenhouse site in Moran Prairie. Plans for the property include a grocery store and other businesses.

She used similar reasoning when voting on the amendment for 35 acres of land on Hatch Road at the Highway 395 interchange. The owners are proposing a grocery store, restaurants and other retail businesses on the site.

Commissioners also approved allowing high-density residential development on a portion of the site.

Commissioner John Roskelley opposed the Moran Prairie amendment because it extended the county’s urban growth area before the five-year review of its borders and because Moran Prairie has yet to finish its neighborhood development plan.

Almost across the board, Roskelley voted against the amendments while commissioners Phil Harris and McCaslin supported them.

There were just two exceptions.

All three commissioners approved the modified Hatch Road amendment.

Another request – to change a one-acre parcel on Argonne and Wellesley from low-density residential to neighborhood commercial – was supported by Harris but opposed by McCaslin and Roskelley. That change would have permitted the construction of a convenience store or gas station.

But commissioners Roskelley and McCaslin said that the property should remain residential, at least for now. Roskelley cited ongoing neighborhood planning, while McCaslin based her decision on the lack of other commercial property in the area, which is all residential.

That application was the only one of the bunch denied Monday.