Council OKs extending water service to homes

The Spokane City Council has approved extending municipal water services to an area north of the city limits outside the Urban Growth Area.

The council voted 6-0 on Tuesday night to override staff objections and begin negotiating with developer Peter Rayner to provide city water to 16 homes he wants to build on 10 acres east of Indian Trail Road. It reversed a decision from 2004 that refused to extend city water into the area.

Rayner has owned some 80 acres in the area since 1992 and has tried for more than 10 years to develop it. As many as 1,200 acres in the area had been suggested for development and annexation to the city as far back as 1978, he told the council.

He was in negotiations with both the city and the county in 1997, when the state’s Growth Management Act went into effect and restricted urban development outside of urban areas.

But the city has a policy of fulfilling agreements it made before the law took effect, and Rayner and his attorney produced documents indicating he had such an agreement for water services.

Council members said they hoped eventually to extend the city’s boundaries into the area through annexation, which, as Rayner noted, would add tax revenue to the city. “I really think I can get those people to come into the city,” Rayner said.

But Dave Mandyke, acting director of Public Works and Utilities, pointed out two problems. One is that Rayner’s property is not adjacent to the city limits, so the property in between would also have to be annexed. The other is the land is outside the city’s Urban Growth Area.

“This is an area we can’t currently annex,” Mandyke said.

But Councilman Al French, who voted against the extension in 2004, said he now is convinced the city had made a commitment to Rayner more than 10 years ago and should live up to it by at least having staff negotiate with the developer.