County wants growth area shifted

Spokane County has until Wednesday to prove to a state board that oversees growth management that it is complying with state law. Failure to do so could result in the Eastern Washington Growth Management Hearings Board recommending that Gov. Chris Gregoire impose economic sanctions against Spokane County.

Because of this deadline, the county on Thursday asked the Planning Commission to recommend removing some 300 acres from the county’s urban growth boundary, the area in which higher density development is allowed. The commissioners approved that land for inclusion within the growth boundary over the past two years despite Planning Commission recommendations against doing so.

Removing the land on Five Mile Prairie and the West Plains from the growth boundary would revert its zoning from urban to rural but would not, correspondingly, restrict developers’ plans to build hundreds of homes there.

The county is doing this because the Hearings Board found it out of compliance with the Growth Management Act after neighbors who opposed the county’s decision on Five Mile and the West Plains appealed. The Hearings Board initially gave the county until May to comply with state law, including updating a plan that would show how it will pay for infrastructure improvements necessary before development can take place, performing land quantity analyses to show why additional land is needed for high density development, addressing storm water issues and other concerns. The county responded by proposing the December deadline, saying the work could be completed as part of its Comprehensive Plan update.

But on Thursday, the county said it had not completed the work and instead wanted to change the land designation in an attempt to comply with the Hearings Board’s order. In a letter to the Planning Commission, county commission Chairman Todd Mielke said the county had good intentions, but because of information that has not been provided by its cities, the county has been unable to meet the deadline.

The county’s attorney, Dave Hubert, said this is the county’s last resort. “The only option they have available to them,” he said, “is to reverse what they did by adding those properties to the urban growth area in the first place.”

The neighbors who fought the initial inclusion of the land in the urban growth area vehemently opposed what they saw as the county’s effort to clean up its mistake through superficial action that does nothing to address the real problems. They predicted the Growth Management Hearings Board will quickly see through the county’s efforts to make changes solely on paper.

“Set it back in the laps of our highly paid elected officials,” said Julia McHugh, a West Plains resident. “They are asking you to mend their mistakes. This has a tremendous effect. I ask you to take this very seriously.”

Regardless of the legal maneuverings, housing developments approved on all the properties will continue to move forward.

“It doesn’t really affect us at the end of the day because we can develop the property,” said Stacy Bjordahl, an attorney for the developers, who were neutral on the proposal but wanted to support the county’s efforts to comply with state law. She called the Hearings Board’s demands on the county arbitrary and unfair, saying the amount of time the county was given to come into compliance was too short.