AIRWAY HEIGHTS — The story of the proposed Urban Grown Area boundaries swap that could free additional land for much needed residential use took a little detour at the May 23 Airway Heights City Council study session.
As council was reviewing a proposed letter that would attempt to encourage the numerous stakeholders to sit across a real table from one another and discuss differences, a new wrinkle surfaced.
City Administrator Albert Tripp first presented the letter for review, and it appeared the matter was headed to the next step with no stated objections from council.
“I don’t know how you guys feel but we’ve covered this UGA swap pretty extensively previously and the benefits and what it would do for the city,” councilman Larry Bowman said. “I think the letter does exactly what our intentions are to bring everybody to the table and it’s up to them.”
But not long after Tripp revealed that Spokane County was requesting the zoning swap landowners perform an analysis for various capital facilities and the transportation.
Such a request injects a possible delay in the process, Tripp explained. “There’s an open question as to whether or not the applicants are going to move forward with this proposal as part of the 2021 cycle or if it will be deferred until 2022,” he said.
City officials had made contact but had yet to receive an answer back as to what the future calendar holds.
In a figurative “now you see it, now you don’t” magic trick, the county is proposing shifting 180 acres of land they own — it’s off-road vehicle park on the north end of town — off the books. In exchange comes developable land east of Hayford and west of Flint roads for Airway Heights.
But there’s still quite a bit of homework to be done with approval of shifting potential residential uses. Hence the possibility of having to move the calendar and hold off on the proposed meeting letter.
That may have been resolved already as Airway Heights officials were hopeful of hearing from landowners by a Spokane County imposed comment deadline of May 25.
Principal Planner Heather Trautman suggested another track for council consideration: that being a separate letter to the Board of County Commissioners voicing any city concerns over the process so far. To date, the proposed zoning shift has elicited response from Fairchild Air Force Base, the Washington State Department of Transportation and Spokane International Airport, among others.
Trautman suggested that the council response letter still be sent when appropriate because there was a chance that it may still become important sooner rather than later. Pending meetings by key decision makers could occur as soon as next month.
“Because if this application were to keep on timeline, the Steering Committee of Elected Officials would be asked to meet in June and the Board County Commissioners would be shortly thereafter to consider this as well as any other applications,” Trautman said.
Paul Delaney is a retired Free Press Publishing reporter and can be reached at [email protected].
Reader Comments(0)