Hite Crane sets up shop in Greenacres

Ed Hite has been hard at work transforming two parcels of land at 17515 E. Appleway into the new headquarters of Hite Crane and Rigging.

The building is being remodeled to house staff and a repair garage. An old, dilapidated car wash was torn down and removed. A wrought iron fence has been put up around the perimeter. The historic Hite Crane sign that dates back to Expo ’74 has been installed.

“It needed a lot of work,” Hite said.

Hite is moving his business, in operation since 1969, to the eastern edge of Spokane Valley after years on the western edge of the city on Broadway Avenue near Havana Street. Some of his land was needed for the Havana overpass project and Hite started looking for another home.

But the move was not without controversy. After initially looking at property on the west end of Sprague Avenue that wasn’t zoned correctly, Hite purchased two parcels at the corner of Appleway and Tschirley Road across from Greenacres Middle School a few months ago. His industrial business doesn’t fit the zoning in the area, but one of the parcels had previously housed a nonconforming business which allowed his nonconforming business to move in.

At the time city code stipulated that a nonconforming use could expand to an adjacent parcel only if both parcels had been under the same ownership at the time the use became nonconforming. Hite’s two parcels didn’t meet that condition because he purchased the second parcel with an old car wash on it from a different owner. Hite said he didn’t realize he couldn’t use both when he bought them.

“It didn’t make any sense to me that there would be (a problem),” he said. “I bought them both at the same time. I thought, really, that we had done due diligence.”

Hite quickly went to the city to propose a text amendment to change city code to allow a nonconforming business to expand to any adjacent parcel no matter when it was purchased. It took months, with Hite frequently appearing at council meetings to plead with the council to do something quickly so he could stay in business. He was facing an October deadline to move out of his old location.

The amendment was finally passed, but not before concerns were raised about Hite’s location next to a school and the fact that any other nonconforming use in the city could use the rule change that was created solely to benefit Hite Crane and Rigging.

“It’s been hard for me to understand why they want to make it so difficult to do positive things,” he said. If he had just been trying to open a second location he would have walked away, he said. “I had no choice. I had to stick with it or go out of business.”

At one point Hite told the City Council that he needed the second parcel to provide access for emergency vehicles. When the property was first purchased, there were multiple fences criss-crossing it. “It was all blocked off,” he said. “They had so many different fences all the way around.”

Spokane Valley Fire Deputy Chief Larry Rider said the fire department’s concerns ended when the fences came down. “He’s now made one parcel, which opens it up for us,” Rider said.

Even though two of the property’s exits face Greenacres Middle School in the area where buses line up before and after school, Hite said he doesn’t think his equipment will cause any problems. “The school access is on the other side,” he said.

When asked if the Central Valley School District had any concerns about its new neighbor, Superintendent Ben Small e-mailed a short statement saying that the district was looking forward to working with Hite Crane. “I believe we will enjoy a solid/good/positive working relationship and collaborate on any issues that may arise,” Small wrote.

During the process to change the nonconforming expansion rules one council member expressed concern that the move meant Hite Crane wouldn’t have to get permits for its oversize and overweight vehicles. Hite said that’s not the case. “There’s no difference in what we pay for permits here than we did over there,” he said, referring to his previous location.

The cost of the permits varies depending on the weight of the vehicle, its size and how far it is going. “On some of our big rigs, it costs $1,000 per trip,” Hite said.

Washington State Department of Transportation spokesman Al Gilson said Hite Crane will still have to pay the state every time one of its pieces of large equipment travels on a state highway. That includes Interstate 90, Pines Road, Trent Avenue and Division Street. “It’s a per mile charge,” Gilson said. “He only pays us for operations on state highways.”