Rural zone plan fuels debate

Records show Spokane County planning commissioners didn’t miss any information, as a county commissioner suggested, when they rejected a proposal to allow gasoline convenience stores in rural areas.

Commissioner Todd Mielke persuaded his fellow county commissioners Tuesday to schedule their own hearing next month on the proposed zoning-code amendment on grounds that planning commissioners didn’t receive a “clarification” that would have limited the effect of the proposal.

“My understanding is the applicant (sent) a clarification letter to our staff with regard to the intent of the application that was not presented to the (planning) commission in time for their consideration,” Mielke said.

He thought the letter would have slashed the number of convenience stores to be allowed in rural areas.

In fact, though, the revisions outlined by land-use consultant Dwight Hume would have increased the number of stores in some areas while decreasing the number elsewhere.

Hume’s June 11 letter says he submitted it “at the last moment,” and requests that it be read into the record at a July 12 Planning Commission meeting. Commissioners had continued the issue from their June meeting so they could consider another effort to clarify the proponent’s intent.

Chattaroy businessman Steve Smart had requested the zoning-code amendment to change the rules after failing to get a zone change for the gasoline convenience store he wants to add to his landscaping, nursery, florist and coffee shop businesses at the intersection of Bigelow Gulch and Argonne roads. The site is zoned “rural traditional.”

Currently, rural convenience stores are allowed only in hamlets zoned as “rural activity centers.”

Represented by attorney and former county planner Stacy Bjordahl, Smart sought to allow 5,000-square-foot convenience stores in “rural traditional” zones.

Inadvertently, the proposal would have eliminated the 20,000-square-foot maximum size for stores in “rural activity center” zones. It also mistakenly specified a traffic threshold that would have kept Smart from benefiting from his own proposal.

The Planning Commission agreed to a one-month continuation of a public hearing in June so the problems could be fixed. As amended, the proposal would allow a single convenience store at an intersection in which one of the roads is a designated arterial and one of the roads carries at least 5,000 vehicles per day.

With current traffic, the amended proposal would allow as many as 10 stores on Bigelow Gulch Road, two on the Palouse Highway, one on Deer Park-Milan Road and one on Trent Avenue, at Harvard Road.

But that’s not what was intended, Hume said in his June 11 letter. Rather, he said, the intention was to limit the proposal to intersections with two arterial roads, not one – and one of those would have to carry at least 5,000 vehicles a day.

That would reduce the number of allowed sites from 14 to two: Smart’s location and the intersection of Bigelow Gulch and Weile roads, according to county planner Steve Davenport.

However, Hume went on to specify that a state highway could substitute for a county arterial. That would restore one of the 14 previously identified sites: the intersection of Harvard Road and Trent Avenue, which also is State Route 290. And a door to other sites would be opened.

Davenport said adding state highways would “significantly” increase the potential for rural convenience stores. He said the number hasn’t been calculated, but the proposal would apply to U.S. Highways 2, 395 and 195 as well as Interstate 90 because federal highways are under state control.

Planning Commission Chairman Bill Moore said Thursday that the substance of Hume’s letter, if not the letter itself, was discussed at the July 12 meeting at which he and planning commissioners Doug Kelley, Dave Jones and Mike Schmitz voted unanimously to recommend that county commissioners deny Smart’s proposal.

“The underlying reason is that having a convenience store in a rural zone is a contradiction to the purpose and reason for rural zoning,” Moore said.

Also, he said planning commissioners were concerned that allowing only one store at an intersection would open the county to lawsuits.

“Are you reducing the value of the other three corners?” Moore asked. “Is this a taking action by prohibiting the owners of those other three corners from doing similar?”