Rocked at the Docks

State Appeals Court finds Coyote Rock and City of Spokane Valley violated state law with docks at controversial development on Spokane River.

In a major victory today for opponents of the Coyote Rock developers’ plan to site 30 recreational docks on a scenic stretch of the Spokane River, a state court of appeals panel has ruled that permits for the first two docks at the site were illegally granted by the City of Spokane Valley.

The three-judge panel’s unanimous decision stems from a challenge that Washington’s Department of Ecology brought two years ago when it intervened in a challenge originally brought by the Spokane Riverkeeper, the Spokane Falls Chapter of Trout Unlimited, and The Lands Council. At the time, Ecology contested the validity of exemptions that the City of Spokane Valley issued under the state’s Shoreline Management Act. It also sharply criticized the overall plan because the “cumulative effects of locating 30 individual docks on this reach of the river will result in complete degradation of the shoreline” in violation of the state law.

The Court of Appeals ruling focuses on the legality of the exemption to the Shoreline Management Act (SMA) that the developer sought and the City of Spokane Valley granted. Specifically, the ruling agrees with Ecology’s interpretation of the law—that the Coyote Rock developer simply isn’t entitled to use the exemption it sought because the exemption is only available to a property owner seeking to use a dock for private, non-commercial use.

At issue were the first two docks constructed at the site, one constructed in early 2010, and a second added in the summer of 2010. Both docks, Ecology alleged, were “spec” docks, intended to demonstrate the value of the riverside property to prospective Coyote Rock lot owners.

The second illegal dock built at Coyote Rock in the 2010.

“If the construction of the docks for lots 23 and 9 canned be said to have been designed for Coyote Rock’s ‘use’ at all,” wrote Judge Laurel Siddowy for the panel, “then it was for resale, a clearly commercial use. Because Coyote Rock was not eligible for the exemption relied upon by the city, the superior court’s order denying Ecology’s land use petitions must be reversed.”

Having reached its ruling on the basis of the flawed exemption, the court ruled that “it is not helpful for us to reach Ecology’s second argument” which is that the city failed to impose conditions on the permits that would address “the cumulative impacts that will result from eventual construction of 30 docks, something the city’s letters of exemptions do not do.”

However, the court’s opinion, includes a telling footnote, that appears to not bode well for the developers’ long-term plans.

“We recognize that our conclusion that Coyote Rock’s construction of a spec dock does not quality for the owner-noncommercial uses exemption will have an additional ramification under the specific {Shoreline} master program at issue here: unless the city modifies its master program, Coyote Rock will not be able to construct docks at all on its waterfront lots (if any) that were not platted prior to 1974 and fall within the area that the master plan designates as Pastoral. This is not a direct consequence of our construction of the SMA, however, but a collateral consequences of the provision of the particular master program at issue here.”

In the meantime, the appeals court ruling sends the case back to Spokane County Superior Court “with directions that it reverse the exemptions issued by the city.”

“Washington’s Shoreline Protection Act is supposed to be read strictly in favor of protecting our shorelines, so that places like the Spokane River are protected,” Riverkeeper Bart Mihailovich said, in a statement praising the ruling. “Both the City of Spokane Valley and the Superior Court failed to give the benefit of the doubt to the River, instead allowing for dock development in an area of known Redband trout habitat.”

—Tim Connor for the Center for Justice.