Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
County Commissioners
The Board of County Commissioners during their regular Monday meeting.
Four agriculture areas were approved by Whitman County commissioners Monday to be re-zoned as cluster residential districts – allowing for development, with a required minimum of 20 acres consisting of four lots each.
The zones, all near Pullman, are known as Itani Zone, Redwood Farmland Holdings, J Bar S Farmland Holdings and Warren Street Zone.
The parcels were recommended for approval by Whitman County Planning Commission, which held public hearings Feb. 3 and Feb. 17.
The Itani Zone is a 20-acre section north of Airport Road. Redwood Farmland Holdings is 23 acres north of Airport Road and east of O’Donnell Road, J Bar S Farmland is a 20-acre section north of Orville Boyd Road and Warren Street zone represents 20 acres north of Kitzmiller Road.
At Monday’s hearing, the J Bar S Farmland Holdings area drew public comments from Barbara O’Donnell, Pullman.
“This is good farmland. We have the best farmland in the world,” she said. “These people are destroying it.”
She described the residences to be built as “rural slum housing.”
“You need to know what you’re doing to us out here,” she said.
Commissioner Michael Largent, chairman, made a comment that the commissioners are required to judge by what the code allows.
Commissioner Art Swannack made a motion to approve the new zoning, and it was seconded by Commissioner Dean Kinzer and passed unanimously.
The changes come as a result of the county’s tax sharing agreement with Pullman, which set an application deadline of Dec. 31 of last year.
The new tax sharing plan permits no further clustering.
The areas in question are all in an agriculture district around Pullman within a half-mile of city limits.
A cluster zone would allow for development, with a required minimum of 20 acres consisting of four lots each.
The new tax sharing agreement makes it so 80 percent of the land previously eligible for cluster developments is now barred from it.
After the filing deadline last December, the matter of cluster re-zones went to the county planning commission, which voted to pass it on to the county commissioners for approval.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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