Last ditch effort to halt Thorpe Road land sale falters

Yahoo

02-04-2025

Apr. 1—Another last-ditch effort to halt the sale of undeveloped land on Thorpe Road in the U.S. Highway 195 corridor through Latah Valley appears to have failed after the state Board of Natural Resources declined Tuesday to hear the appeal of conservationists.
The board voted on Jan. 7 to transfer 200 acres of forested land to Redmond-based developer Blue Fern, which plans to build roughly 1,000 homes there. Activists, who opposed the transfer and argued the board failed to adequately consider the ecological and cultural value of the property, had discovered a clause in the agreement that allowed it to be terminated no later than April 6.
Tuesday was the last regularly scheduled board meeting prior to that termination date, and conservationists including Tom Uniack, executive director for state conservation group Washington Wild, had hoped to persuade the board to reconsider. The board did not add the item to its agenda, however.
"We're disappointed that the board did not take the opportunity at this very timely board meeting to step back to consider what is the best decision here for trust beneficiaries, the city of Spokane and community residents," Uniack said Tuesday afternoon.
If there is no action prior to the April 6 deadline, Uniack said he and others who want the land conserved will continue to lobby the city, state and Blue Fern for "opportunities to keep this land in public hands," noting the actual transfer will not be complete until July 13.
The land in question is a small part of the Department of Natural Resources' Common Schools Trust Fund, 3 million acres of land managed by the agency to produce nontax revenue that pays for, among other things, building schools. This revenue is typically generated through leases, including leasing woodlands to logging companies.
The Thorpe Road property is relatively unproductive, however, and currently costs the Department of Natural Resources more than it brings in due to dumping, trespassing and encampments, according to agency analysis provided to the board during the Jan. 7 meeting.
The city of Spokane's parks department applied last year to a competitive program in which DNR considers transferring ownership of its trust land and is compensated by the state, not the recipient — meaning Spokane, if it had been successful, could have received the land at no cost to the city.
The city had proposed folding the land into its parks portfolio, conserving much of it as wildland.
But among the 30 properties considered last year through DNR's trust land transfer program, there was only enough funding from the state Legislature for eight. Spokane's application ranked 18th, a ranking local conservationists and City Councilman Paul Dillon have argued was flawed due to an inadequate consideration of the land's natural resources and a lack of tribal input.
Instead, DNR, under the leadership of then-Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz, moved to quickly exchange the land to Redmond-based developer Blue Fern Management, which proposed building around 1,000 homes there in what it calls the Latah Park development. In exchange for the Thorpe Road land, which was valued at around $8 million, as well as another $7 million of agency funds, Blue Fern agreed to trade them a 4-acre commercial property in Whatcom County with a Haggen grocery store.
Conservation activists attempted to slow or stop the transfer, arguing the wooded area contains geological, ecological and cultural features that are increasingly rare in city limits and would be lost under the construction. Uniack and local activists had hoped to convince the board Tuesday that the body was not provided enough information about the value of the land when it approved the transfer on Jan. 7.
They had hoped to find an ally in new Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove, who signaled on the campaign trail that he would be a stronger defender of forest land. One of his first acts in office was to pause the sale of older forests that didn't meet the requirements for old growth forest protections.
Upthegrove and the board are under pressure both by groups hoping to expand what lands are protected from timber harvest and lobbyists for the timber industry expressing "alarm" at any slowdown, as evidenced by an hour of public testimony at the start of Tuesday's meeting.
Compared with activists trying and failing to prevent timber harvests that were up for consideration on Tuesday's docket, such as the "Sizzler" timber sale in Thurston County, conservationists appear to have faced an even more uphill battle to get the board to reconsider the sale of Thorpe Road land that had been approved months before and was not scheduled for a hearing Tuesday.