The Spokane County Hearing Examiner’s office has given approval to a conditional use permit for construction of a private airstrip on 151 acres of land located about a half mile northeast of Cheney along the Cheney-Spokane Road.
Dennis Reed, the property owner, originally applied for the permit in 2010, only to be challenged by a group called The Prosser Hill Coalition, consisting of nearby homeowners. Spokane County hearing examiner Michael Dempsey approved Reed’s original conditional use permit, filed under Silverbird, LLC.
The coalition appealed, and in 2011 a Superior Court judge granted the appeal, which was based on the coalition’s contentions that Reed hadn’t given proper public notification — he posted his required signs on Jensen Road to the west instead of Cheney-Spokane Road. Reed then appealed this decision to the Washington State Appeals Court, which in January 2014, upheld the Superior Court’s ruling and sent it back for further proceedings.
The court ordered a new public hearing under the requirements that Reed post hearing notices along Cheney-Spokane Road and include a corrected description of the site in mailed and published hearing notices. Reed complied, and Dempsey conducted a new public hearing on the conditional use permit March 10 and March 12.
Dempsey issued his ruling July 10, granting the permit and attaching conditions to be followed. Reed provided plans to the examiner to subdivide the property into 10-acre or larger tracts, with each tract owner having the right to use the 24-foot wide by 2,500-foot long hard-surface airstrip built inside a 250-foot “safety landing zone.” The airstrip is to run in a northeast to southwest alignment along the property’s southern edge.
The ruling gave the coalition until Aug. 4 in which to file an appeal. In late July, prior to meeting with legal counsel to discuss their next steps, coalition member Lisa Watts-McKee said Reed made personal contact with the group, expressing a desire to set up a collaborative-type meeting to work out some middle ground on the proposed airstrip.
Watts-McKee said the coalition discussed the proposal at a meeting with legal counsel and voted to proceed in working something out with Reed. In a letter to Reed dated July 29, the coalition expressed their interest in a meeting, proposing third-party mediation, but noted they were also proceeding with filing of the appeal, citing the need to “preserve our position” and the state’s strict time limits.
“We went ahead and submitted an appeal to keep our options open,” Watts-McKee said in an Aug. 18 phone interview. “We are primarily interested in some sort of collaborative meeting.”
In an email Aug. 26, Reed said he has been out of the area on vacation and only just returned. He noted there were 454 undisputed findings of fact supporting the airstrip in the examiner’s decision as well as “22 other private airstrips protected by Spokane County.
“First of all, I’m satisfied with the county’s approval and conditions,” Reed wrote. “They’re not all in my favor, but they’re navigable.”
Reed said he understood the coalition’s move to proceed with the appeal, saying he respects that it’s a strategic move to leverage formal negotiations with him. He also said it “breaches some good faith that most negotiations need.”
“Regardless, I am and always have been open to collaboration with a group of my neighbors,” Reed said. “It’s only recently that the coalition and I have connected on some constructive ideas. I can’t speculate an outcome yet.”
Reed questioned if the coalition represented all of the homeowners surrounding the proposed airstrip, adding that the collaboration process might be best served by a “larger and perhaps project-neutral group.”
John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].
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