Bigelow Gulch-Argonne Gas Station Rejected Amid Neighbors’ Complaints
The developer touted it as a country store that would blend into the Bigelow Gulch-Argonne area like a ponderosa pine.
Neighbors protested that it was nothing more than a gas station - a cash cow that would stick out obtrusively in the quiet rural neighborhood and draw traffic and crime.
Spokane County commissioners agreed Tuesday night.
Voting 3-0, they killed developer Steve Smart’s project and a plan to rezone one acre from general agriculture to rural settlement.
Commissioner John Roskelley had a half dozen reasons to deny the project, which skated through a three-member hearing examiner committee earlier this year.
“These people move out there to get away from convenience stores and crime,” Roskelley said. “It goes against the comprehensive plan and the wish of the community.”
Smart said his chief aim for sticking a store at Bigelow Gulch and Argonne - the gateway connecting the North Side and the Valley - was public safety.
Motorists often run out of gas in that area because the closest gas station is a few miles away, he said.
“It’s terrible,” Smart said. “I’ve seen them where there’s one stranded car on every corner.”
Linda Sharman, a neighbor and one of the opposition leaders, said Smart’s argument is folly.
She also said that her community - where she and her family have lived more than 50 years - is not responsible for absent-minded motorists who forget to fill up.
“Their argument is it’s always in the dead of night, always in the dead of winter, always a woman with two toddlers who gets stranded,” Sharman said.
“It’s illogical. It is not an adequate reason in our mind to open the gate of commercialism in a rural area.”
Roskelley also criticized the out-of-gas argument, joking that he should call “Unsolved Mysteries” because of the claims of stranded motorists.
He added that he drives by that corner every day and has never seen a stalled car.
Earlier in the day, Commissioner Steve Hasson said he was going to approve the project, even though it was political suicide.
Commissioner Phil Harris quipped, “Politically, you just sliced off 1,500 votes.”
But Hasson changed his mind after talking with legal counsel and wanted to avoid what Roskelley called a blatant violation of the county’s land-use policy.
County planners also recommended that the project be denied because it was inconsistent with the neighborhood.
“We’re worried about gas stations followed by video stores, followed by wrecking yards,” Sharman said. “We’re worried this becomes a strip.”
, DataTimes