Rallying for the rural life

Chuck and Janet Hafner’s one-acre yard is a retired couple’s paradise. In the middle, vegetables grow in a small garden. In the back, pins mark Chuck Hafner’s miniature golf course. And near the house, 69-year-old Janet Hafner’s dozen or so plastic pink flamingos stand stiff-legged, their beaks poking toward the grass.

Chuck Hafner, 72, likes his large lot in Spokane Valley’s Ponderosa neighborhood and doesn’t want to worry every time a neighbor sells a house that a developer will replace it with six.

“It was the kind of rural life that we all wanted,” he said. “That’s why the majority of us moved here.”

So Hafner, his neighbors and residents in the city’s Rotchford Acres area petitioned the city of Spokane Valley to protect their neighborhoods against growth. Their efforts appear to be making an impact.

At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Community Development Director Marina Sukup proposed making an interim zoning change that would allow for no more than one house per acre in those two neighborhoods. The new zone, UR-1, would replace the two areas’ UR-7* zone, which allows for six homes per acre now, she said.

Sukup also wants to allow those residents to keep large animals. Some current homeowners received permission to keep their horses, llamas and other animals when Spokane County changed its laws to prohibit them, but Sukup said people who buy into those neighborhoods in the future should enjoy the same rights.

“Why would anybody buy an acre of land?” she asked. “Surely not for the privilege of mowing all weekend. You probably want to have some kind of creature.”

But Ponderosa and Rotchford Acres aren’t the only areas where residents want to maintain the status quo. About 80 people attended a meeting in Greenacres on Wednesday night, said Planning Commission Chairman Bill Gothmann.

“The folks in Greenacres are quite upset at new developments coming into their area,” he said.

A horse looked up from its Greenacres pasture Thursday to survey a stranger. Behind it, several houses in a new subdivision stood in contrast to the animal’s more country-like backyard setting. More housing developments are planned for the area.

“It’s hard to see the beautiful fields in this area be turned into a concrete wonderland,” said Greenacres resident Mary Pollard, 50.

At least one other neighborhood, plus Greenacres, has approached the city recently requesting that growth be restricted, officials said.

As rural and suburban lifestyles converge, sometimes there’s conflict. Sukup said she’s “taken a crash course in manure management” after dealing with the daily complaints from residents about neighbors’ animal smells.

Greenacres resident Jackie White, 50, worries that when eight houses are built next to her property soon, they’ll be so close that her horses will reach over the fence and gnaw on the siding.

So will the city consider zone changes for all the neighborhoods that petition against growth? Sukup said the UR-1 proposal applies best to Ponderosa and Rotchford Acres because those areas are fully developed neighborhoods with little, if any, vacant land.

“In some of the other areas, there is so little development you can’t really say there’s a neighborhood,” she said.

Those former farms and unused properties in other parts of the city are good candidates for housing developments, Sukup said.

Plus, there are environmental concerns in Ponderosa and Rotchford Acres that could cause problems if more people live there, she said.

On the surface, the UR-1 proposal contradicts the state’s Growth Management Act (GMA), which calls for denser development in most areas to combat urban sprawl. But Sukup said the act is more flexible than that.

“One size does not fit all,” she said. “One thing that GMA says is, ‘Work with the neighborhoods.’ ”

The city has begun writing its first comprehensive land-use plan, which will guide growth for the next 20 years and is required by the GMA. Gothmann said if the city is careful, it could devise a comprehensive plan that prepares for future residents while maintaining the character of the existing neighborhoods.

“It’ll have to be a unique plan, but I’m convinced we can do both,” he said.

The Planning Commission is expected to consider the UR-1 proposal at an upcoming meeting. If the commission recommends making the change and the City Council agrees, a public hearing would be held. The state Community, Trade and Economic Development office also would have to approve it.