Neighbors rally to oppose a private airstrip planned outside of Cheney

County permit hearing extended three days due to public testimony

By BECKY THOMAS

Staff Reporter

Views on land use can vary—even completely diverge—depending on what side of the fence you stand on.

Take the 1/2-mile long airstrip Denny Reed plans to build on his property off Jensen Road northeast of Cheney. For Reed, the airstrip and private aviation community he plans to build there would fill a demand for private airstrips with adjacent residential development and bring up to 15 high end homes to the area. For several of Reed's neighbors, the airstrip poses a risk to their safety, to the environment, to their quiet surroundings and to their property values.

The two sides presented their cases to the county hearing examiner over three separate hearings starting Oct. 27 and ending Nov. 10.

Reed flies light and ultralight aircraft from a small personal airstrip atop Prosser Hill. He plans to build the proposed airstrip at the bottom of the hill. Reed began operating Backcountry Aerosports, an ultralight instruction and consulting business, there in 2003. Last fall, Reed applied for a Conditional Use Permit to build a 250-foot-by-2,500-foot asphalt airstrip in the southeastern portion of a 151-acre property located south of his home and business. The property sits alongside several residential parcels on Cheney-Spokane Road just south of Fish Lake.

Reed said he wants the private airstrip to serve 15 planes, with up to 21 flights per week. He said the Rural Traditional zone that designates the property allows for 88 different uses, including things like pig farms, lumber mills, hazardous waste storage and dangerous animal keeping.

“It's a high end residential aviation community with less than an hour of noise a week total,” he said. “I think it's awfully hard to argue against that in lieu of what the zoning code allows.”

But several of Reed's neighbors are protesting. The public hearing on the proposal stretched over three days, due in part to the volume of public testimony. The opposing group, named the Prosser Hill Neighborhood Coalition, pooled funds to hire a lawyer and an engineering firm to refute Reed's application.

Jackie Olson owns property closest to the proposed airstrip, about 400 feet from the end of the proposed runway.

She said if the project goes through it would completely change the atmosphere of her home.

“We moved here because we love the country,” she said, adding that the research, preparation and hearings have been a drain on many neighbors' time and energy. “It's emotional. This is tough. These are our homes.”

Lisa McKee, who lives about 1/4-mile south of the airstrip's proposed location and helped form the neighborhood coalition, said the neighbors were at a disadvantage from the start because they had about 10 days notice before the hearing. She said they were informed when the application process began last December, but they weren't kept informed about the application's progress through various stages of review. The neighbors were forced to scramble to prepare for the hearing, she said. They used the hearings to question many findings in the airstrip application, including what they deemed to be a lack of completeness as well as concerns about safety, noise, the surrounding environment and area wildlife.

McKee said many of the things Reed said he would do, including requiring pilots to change in- and outgoing routes to avoid homes, limiting the number of planes and limiting the number of takeoffs and landings, are not binding or required by the county.

“What he's saying he's going to do, we question,” McKee said. “We're concerned that they'll get the barest minimum permit and it will blossom into something much bigger.”

McKee said there are around 20 property owners who oppose the airstrip proposal. One of them is Roy Wilson, who bought land on Cheney-Spokane Road with his wife in 1979.

“We found this place and fell in love with the land, bought it from the owner, built our house here,” he said.

Wilson said he worried about the potential for plane crashes that could start a fire in the dry summer, among other dangers.

“I know how quickly fires can start out here,” he said. ““I could lose everything I have.”

Reed said he's not trying to be a bad neighbor; he's just doing what the county allows.

“Do you think it's unreasonable that before you buy a home in a particular area, that you go to the county and see these three pages (of possible uses in the Rural Traditional zone) and what can be done on the property next to you, legally?” he said. “I didn't write the rules.”

Spokane County planner Tammy Jones, who handled the application process for the county, said Reed's application met the size and boundary requirements for a CUP, but one criterion required a more subjective look.

“The most difficult criteria is did this take into full consideration the adjacent land uses, and that's what the hearing examiner will decide,” Jones said.

McKee said the “full consideration” clause was central to the neighbors' challenge. She said they hoped hearing examiner Michael Dempsey would deem the airstrip to have too great an effect on the rural homeowners and farmers surrounding it.

“It's subjective and that's why it's in there, because you cannot base everything on facts or we would not need a hearing,” McKee said.

Reed said he feels his neighbors are overreacting to his proposal. He said he will limit flights and limit the number of homes built on the property.

“Why? Because I live here too,” he said. “You can't rule out common sense and respect for privacy. You can't rule that out. We're pilots, not Hell's Angels.”

Dempsey said he would come to a decision sometime after Thanksgiving. Either party has the option to appeal the ruling.

Becky Thomas can be reached at [email protected].