Residents challenge environmental ruling

Residents opposed to a new condominium complex at 57th Avenue and Hatch Road took their case to the Spokane City Council last week.

They said that the 100 units proposed for a steep hillside could destabilize the slope and undermine their properties.

Council members last Thursday said during a special council session they wanted to consider the appeal before taking a vote as early as Dec. 10 during their regular council meeting.

Property owner Yong Lewis had obtained a mitigated determination of environmental non-significance from city staff more than a year ago, and the city hearing examiner approved the staff ruling in a decision last June.

Residents appealed the environmental ruling to the council. Appellants identified in documents are the Quail Ridge Annex LLC, Joseph Delay and Eileen Martin.

Their attorney, Stanley Schwartz, said the developer’s own consultant confirmed the environmental hazards. He said roads and building sites would have to be cut into the hillside and retaining walls would be used, but there is nothing to assure that construction engineers could come up with plans to make the slope safe in the future.

Estimates showed that as much as 50,000 cubic yards of earth would have to be moved.

“There are very real risks,” Schwartz told the council. “There is a significant issue with respect to the cut-and-fill operation on this site,” he said.

The city building department had agreed to address the environmental issues during the building permit process, which Schwartz said does not allow the public an opportunity to have any involvement in later decisions on construction.

“This is too significant to allow a piecemeal approach like that,” Schwartz said.

He said the project does not meet city criteria that planned-unit developments be environmentally sensitive.

Delay said two homes already have had their lots shift as a result of preliminary road building by the developer.

Mike Murphy, attorney for the developer, said the hearing examiner found that site engineers could solve problems with slope stability, a finding that undercuts the basis for the appeal.