Ponderosa residents push fight

Impassioned Ponderosa neighborhood residents packed the Spokane Valley City Council meeting Tuesday night, asking the city to join them in an upcoming Superior Court appeal that is the latest step in their fight against new houses in the area.

Seven residents testified before an audience of about 100, saying the county’s approval of a proposed development just outside the city limits would make their neighborhood unsafe.

“Please carefully consider and not compound the errors that have been made,” said Gail Stiltner.

The “errors” that neighbors allege involve the appeal of a plan for the 100 new houses.

Bordered on the east by railroad tracks, there are only two roads into the Ponderosa neighborhood. Residents challenged the project before the county hearings examiner in June on the basis that there is too little emergency access, and that it would cause environmental and other problems. The city appealed separately.

After adding conditions – some of which had been sought by the city – hearing examiner Mike Dempsey approved the project. The neighborhood appealed his decision to Superior Court and has asked the city to join that action.

Council members, though, offered no help.

Mayor Diana Wilhite said the court will only evaluate the evidence that the hearing examiner looked at and decided if it was enough to justify Dempsey’s decision.

“There’s nothing that, really, we can do,” she said.

A similar Ponderosa proposal for about 80 homes inside the city limits will receive closer scrutiny by the council, she said.

Developer Lancze Douglass hasn’t moved forward on that development application for six months, while the county project has been deliberated.

Although it would take awhile, Wilhite said she has talked to individual county commissioners about building another access road connecting Ridgeview Road with an existing railroad crossing at 28th Avenue. She said the railroad would fight to prevent any new crossings directly into the neighborhood.

Residents said development should stop in the fire-prone area until existing evacuation issues have been addressed.

Neighborhood organizer Chuck Hafner also asked at the meeting that Councilmen Mike DeVleming and Steve Taylor recuse themselves from decisions on the neighborhood because they accepted $500 campaign donations from the developer.

Both councilmen said they will continue to participate in Ponderosa decisions.

“The law (for campaign contributions) has been followed,” Taylor said.