Examiner rejects appeal on housing project

Spokane’s hearing examiner has rejected an appeal by residents in northwest Spokane seeking to stop a cottage-style housing project just east of Drumheller Springs Park.

Hearing Examiner Greg Smith said in a decision last week that the city’s comprehensive land-use plan and its zoning code allow between four and 10 units per acre. The site along Ash Place, which is just under an acre, is proposed for nine cottage homes, which Smith found consistent with the code.

Neighbors who brought the appeal also argued that the site would not be able to handle storm-water runoff because of its layers of basalt bedrock. They also said that an unpaved street in the area could not handle additional traffic and that the environmentally sensitive park could be damaged by additional residences and the people and pets that go with the housing. The park is revered as a gathering spot and trading location for Native Americans historically.

Smith noted that the applicant would have to meet city engineering standards for handling runoff on the site and that traffic officials had accepted the number of new car trips that the project would generate. Smith also said there was no evidence that the project would cause any more harm to the adjacent park than having larger houses on the lots.

Project owners Wayne and Marcie Endicott would be the first in Spokane to take advantage of a 2006 zoning option that allows for the clustering of homes on existing single-family lots. The property has four lots, but to build cottages, the owners need a conditional-use permit, which the neighbors were appealing.

The appellants can continue the case if they file a lawsuit in Spokane County Superior Court by May 8.

Each of the cottages in the Ash Court project would use about 650 square feet of land, but have about 1,000 square feet of living space through the use of second stories.