Member no shows cancels AH planning meeting

Lack of a quorum led to cancellation of the May 11 Airway Heights Planning Commission meeting, but it likely won’t lead to delays in a project commission members would have discussed.

A public hearing had been scheduled for review and comment on a 75-unit multifamily housing project called Galena Apartments. However the only commissioners in attendance were Nicholas Messing and incoming commissioner Sean Fell, forcing Development Services Director Derrick Braaten to cancel the meeting at 6:20 p.m.

The Galena project site, proposed by Whitewater Creek, Inc., is located north of the western-most termination of Sixth Avenue in the northwest portion of the city.

According to application documents, the project would consist of four buildings on 5.96 acres of land, with 154 parking stalls 10 of which would be handicap accessible. The west side of the site abuts a future north alignment of Ketchum Street, which a staff review of the documents indicated would need to be taken into account.

Comments from the Washington State Department of Transportation pointed to a need for improvements to the U.S. Highway 2 and Craig Road intersection located several blocks south of the projects, and that mitigation fees the city collects for traffic impacts in the area were not addressed. Consequently, WSDOT requested the SEPA (State Environmental Protection Act) Checklist document address those needs, which would likely need to be changed from “Determination of Non-significance (DNS)” to a “Mitigated Determination of Non-significance (MDNS).”

Fairchild Air Force Base requested in its comments that the apartment buildings be designed to reduce the impact of exterior noise by 20-30 decibels. According to city maps and staff comments, the project is located well outside the 65 dB sound contours established for Fairchild, and that only tenant noise reduction would be required.

Before the meeting was canceled, Braaten told commissioners Messing and Fell that he would check to see if another public hearing would be required for the project. In an email Friday, May 13, Braaten said another public hearing would not be needed for the project to move forward, but that he would be withdrawing the DNS ruling and issuing and MDNS.

The Galena project is slated to begin this summer. Final completion is estimated to be summer of 2017.

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.