Crash zone building blocked

Spokane County commissioners filed a new flight plan Friday to compensate for a wrong turn that threatened future operations of Spokane International Airport and Fairchild Air Force Base.

Imposition of an “interim official control” Friday reverses a zoning ordinance change last June that allowed homes to be built in close proximity to the economically vital airport and air base.

The measure replaces a moratorium commissioners imposed Oct. 3 after airport and Air Force officials complained that houses kill runways in their version of rock-paper-scissors.

The moratorium blocked building-permit applications for residential construction on West Plains light industrial land north of Interstate 90. Friday’s action applies to both sides of the freeway, but it came too late to stop a 207-unit housing development in an airport crash zone.

All the land adjacent to the airport and the base is zoned either rural – allowing only one home in 10 acres – or light industrial. Additional restrictions apply in areas where planes are more likely to crash or cause offensive noise.

Funnel-shaped crash zones at the ends of a runway are divided into two sections – A and B, or primary and secondary – according to distance from the runway. Residential construction has never been allowed in primary crash zones nearest the runway, but last June’s zoning ordinance change opened the door for homes in secondary crash zones.

That’s because County Commissioners Todd Mielke, Mark Richard and Phil Harris – since replaced by Bonnie Mager – decided to allow most regional commercial zone uses in light industrial zones, and housing is allowed in regional commercial zones.

Richard and Mielke said they didn’t realize their action would affect runway crash and noise zones.

Friday’s action has much the same effect as the moratorium. However, it signals a permanent solution and closes the loophole that allowed a residential subdivision in the crash zone of one of Spokane International Airport’s two runways.

The interim control rolls back a clock that the moratorium merely stopped. It restores restrictions on residential construction in light industrial zones throughout the West Plains, though it excludes some smaller light industrial areas north of Spokane.

As when they imposed the building-permit moratorium, commissioners must conduct a public hearing within two months to keep their new decision on the books for a total of six months.

Like the moratorium, the interim control can be renewed in six-month increments while planners work out details for a permanent change.

Commissioners said they remain committed to dealing with individual hardships created by their zoning flip-flop and to trying to meet demand for housing on the West Plains.

Another detail to be addressed is Mager’s insistence on language that unequivocally prohibits day-care centers in airport crash zones.

Though the county zoning code says day-care centers are prohibited in crash zones, Building and Planning Director Jim Manson authorized one as an accessory use of the Ambassadors Group headquarters building now under construction at 2001 S. Flint Road.

The 100,000-square-foot office building is in the crash zone of a proposed runway that has been in Spokane International Airport plans for decades.

Airport officials complained that allowing a day-care center in the office building could prevent construction of their planned third runway when it is needed.

But Ambassadors Group Chief Financial Officer Chadwick Byrd said Thursday that the company, which arranges educational travel, has “never been planning a day care.”

“We did ask questions about that,” Chadwick said. “We wanted to understand what the limitations were.”

Day-care centers are one of 16 types of new construction prohibited in secondary crash zones. Commissioners added a 17th item Friday: residential subdivisions or individual houses.

The addition was needed because planners realized a corner of a secondary crash zone for one of Spokane International Airport’s runways is zoned for low-density residential use.

Except for that corner, secondary crash zones are zoned for light industrial or rural uses.

Elsewhere in the secondary crash zone with a corner of residential zoning, commissioners can’t stop landowner Carlos Landa from building a 46-acre, 207-unit subdivision of single-family homes on light industrial land.

Landa got approval to build his Blue Grouse subdivision before commissioners closed the door.

Last October’s moratorium didn’t apply to Landa’s property or other light industrial land south of Interstate 90. Landa’s property is just south of the Geiger interchange on I-90, at the intersection of Thorpe and Grove roads.

Before June 21, housing was allowed in light industrial zones only as part of an industrial development.

No developer has ever proposed such a project in Spokane County, according to John Pederson, Spokane County’s assistant director of building and planning.

However, when purely residential projects were allowed in light industrial zones, Richard Vandervert built a 156-unit apartment complex on Flight Drive, just west of Hayford Road and south of U.S. Highway 2.

The moratorium was imposed before Vandervert could apply for a permit to build a 124-unit second phase to his Deep Creek Apartments – and before Evan and Tabitha Babin could get a permit for the house they want to build nearby.

Fairchild Air Force Base officials fear the apartments and the proposed house, though beyond the base runway’s crash zone, are so close to the end of the runway that noise complaints from occupants eventually may jeopardize the base.