Ephrata annexation questioned by citizens

EPHRATA — A group of Ephrata-area homeowners is challenging the city’s annexation of a 0.73 acre lot at a Feb. 23 public hearing.

The hearing is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Grant County commissioner’s hearing room on the second floor of the courthouse in Ephrata.

The Greenfield Homeowners’ Association collected enough signatures to petition the Grant County Boundary Review Board for a public hearing on the annexation. The Ephrata City Council approved sending the request to the board for approval in November.

Larry Lenssen, the property’s owner, requested the annexation of the property south of the city, after he asked the county for an exception allowing him to build a house, said City Administrator Wes Crago.

An adjacent property was annexed into the city in 1994. The county planners consider the 0.73 acre piece of land next to it part of the larger piece, but it was left off the annexation request, Crago said. Part of the smaller property was sitting inside the area the city can expand into. This area is referred to as the urban growth area (UGA.)

The dispute about the property revolves around whether the proper procedures were followed to include it in the UGA.

Calvin Kooy, the Greenfield Homeowners Association president, doesn’t object to Lenssen’s plans to build a house on the property, but questions how the property ended up in the UGA. He pointed out Lenssen specifically asked for the property to be excluded when the larger piece next to it was annexed in 1994.

“It was never put into the city’s UGA. We have some maps that show what the city has as the posted limits and it did not include that property,” he said. “We had a map from the county showing it was not part of the UGA.”

Kooy also points out two maps, the first from July 14, 2006, showing the boundary running along the edge of the property and the second, from two weeks later, showing the line running through the property. So far he hasn’t found any documentation indicating why the line was moved.

“We are concerned that if property can be reassigned without any legislative action and without any public input, where’s it going to end? We’re concerned the city is annexing property and that it did not follow procedure in order to annex it into the city,” he said.

County Planning Manager Damien Hooper said he did not know why the line was redrawn, but that it’s reasonable to assume someone asked to include it in UGA.

“But that’s not what we’re talking about here. The UGA is completely unrelated to (the boundary review board) or the annexation,” he said.

Since the county regards the 0.73 acre piece of land and the larger piece adjacent to it as one parcel, it falls under a county code prohibiting the boundary from cutting through a parcel of land.

City councilmembers cited the code when they decided to proceed with the annexation, saying the change in the UGA wasn’t something they had any say in.

Councilmember Heidi Schultheis said during the November meeting that the county is responsible for drawing the urban growth boundary, adding that the city needs to act on the county’s decision.

“It’s not up to us to decide, so when they go to the county and they say, ‘This parcel has been split in half,’ and the county has adopted an ordinance that says, ‘If something is split in half then it needs to … go into urban growth area,’” she said.

Kooy questions whether the property meets access requirements, saying the only road accessing the property is privately owned.

If approved by the boundary review board, the request would go back to the city for final approval.