Fighting to protect a lifestyle
One Spokane Valley neighborhood’s race to protect its way of life is entering its final lap.
Greenacres residents applied for a zoning change this year that would reduce the number of homes allowed on an acre to 3.5 from six. After earning the city staff’s recommendation and the Spokane Valley Planning Commission’s nod – but only after that body reconsidered its position – the city council now will decide how the area should grow.
Neighbor Kurt Parker will watch the council’s deliberations, which begin tonight, with cautious optimism.
“The city council will have the decision on it,” Parker said. “Then you can ask me if I’m pleased.”
The struggle to maintain a rural lifestyle has been tough for Greenacres residents.
This year, the City Council approved a temporary rule that allows only one home per acre in the Rotchford Acres and Ponderosa areas, elsewhere in the city. Those neighborhoods are fully developed with one-acre lots. In contrast, Greenacres has undeveloped land and wasn’t a planned neighborhood, opponents of the lower density have said.
“As much as the neighbors like to say there’s character out there, there’s no real character that I can see in the neighborhood,” said David Crosby, a planning commission member who begins a term as chairman in January.
Planning commission members who voted against the rezone, along with developers and other opponents of the change, say consideration must be paid to the rights of property owners who bought land intending to build six homes per acre. Crosby, a real estate agent, thinks allowing more homes would give more people easy access to two of the city’s gems: the Spokane River and the Centennial Trail.
The affected area encompasses more than 250 houses and sits between Barker Road, the Spokane River, Mission Avenue and the Centennial Trail. Developers have plans for at least 200 more houses, about 150 of which have already been OK’d by the city.
Parker said most of the roads can’t handle more cars and the area’s not scheduled to have its septic tanks replaced with sewer lines anytime soon.
“Seventy-one percent (of property owners) say, ‘No, we don’t want to have this kind of stuff out here without the infrastructure,’ ” Parker said, referring to neighbors who signed a petition.
The zoning change wouldn’t be a panacea for the neighbors, though. Even if it’s changed, a developer could apply for a six-homes-per-acre exception. Such requests would go to the hearing examiner and neighbors could comment, but zoning up from 3.5 to six is rarely denied.
The planning commission had voted 3-3 on the rezone in October, resulting in a “no” recommendation to the city council. But commission member Gail Kogle was absent.
Kogle listened to tapes of previous meetings, drove the area and studied the documents. Gothmann, who had voted for the lower density, told her she could ask the group to reconsider. On Nov. 18, the commission voted 4-3 to recommend the rezone.
Instead of delighting in the commission’s second vote, Pollard is discouraged.
“The promise of the new city was that they would do things differently,” she said.
Instead, contends Mary Pollard, who led the rezone effort, the public is left with ambiguous laws. She praised Kogle for studying the issue, but worries the council will bow to developers and allow higher density.
“What they’re missing is the promise to all of us who bought our properties when they were agricultural,” Pollard said.