City Council moves to ban ORVs inside the city

Spokane Valley is a step closer to making off-road vehicle use illegal inside the city after the City Council pushed ahead a proposal to ban them in residential neighborhoods and look at similar measures for business property.

At its regular meeting Tuesday, the council unanimously voted to move the ordinance to a second reading. If approved, all recreational vehicle riding on private residential property would have to end in six months, said Cary Driskell, deputy city attorney.

Residents in a Spokane Valley neighborhood brought the issue before the council last September. They had spent months trying to persuade law enforcement and the city’s building department to shut down a small motocross track one of their neighbors had built in his back yard, only to find out that the track was legal.

At an earlier meeting, the track’s owner said he bought his large lot with the track in mind so he could build a safe place for his kids to ride. Noise levels don’t exceed legal limits, he said, and he feels he’s within his rights as a property owner.

Homeowners around him, though, contend the noise and dust from the motorbikes is a nuisance and shouldn’t be allowed in a city neighborhood.

So far, the council has sided with the neighbors. And if the measure goes forward, people violating it would face code enforcement provisions like those used to clean up junk cars and other property nuisances.

Business owner and incorporation advocate Dick Behm suggested at a recent meeting that the ban be extended to business and industrial property.

“Just to eliminate them in the residential areas, they are going to go somewhere else in the city,” he said Tuesday.

Spokane Valley Mayor Diana Wilhite said she didn’t want to delay the residential ordinance by extending it, but she instructed city staff to study a similar ordinance for other zones.