Moses Lake moves to annex homes on north side of city

MOSES LAKE — The Moses Lake City Council voted to begin the process of annexing roughly 20 acres on the north side of town following a request from a developer to bring nearly five acres within the city limits as part of a major housing development.

At its regular meeting on Tuesday, May 24, City Development Director Kirsten Sackett told council members that the 32 homes on Road 4.8 NE and Space Street off the northern extension of Grape Drive are currently served by a city sewer line. They are also in the city’s urban growth area, so annexation into the city proper makes sense.

“If someone is receiving city utilities, it seems logical to bring them into the city,” she said.

Dave Dornier, a senior engineer with Erlandsen and Associates in Wenatchee and a member of the Quincy city council, said the 30-acre housing development on the northeast corner of Grape Drive and Maple Drive NE, known as Maple Landing, will contain 124 single-family homes and 120 apartment units. Currently, a five-acres portion of the proposed development sits outside the city limits but inside the city’s urban growth area.

“This should work well for all the businesses that want to come in,” Dornier told the Columbia Basin Herald after the meeting. “They need to have homes for people to move into.”

While Dornier asked for annexation on behalf of the property owner, Sackett pointed out to council members that the property owners along Road 4.8 NE and Space Drive have not asked to be annexed, and would need to be polled to see if they support the move. However, she encouraged the city council to go ahead with the full annexation resolution. She said that, if the move fails to find support among property owners along Road 4.8 and Space Drive, the council can move to shrink the proposed annexation.

However, once the boundaries for the annexation are set, and a public hearing on the move is called for, Sackett said the council cannot expand the proposed annexation without voting on another resolution and setting another public hearing.

After a tied vote that failed to see the annexation resolution pass, Council Member Deanna Martinez added language to the proposal that required the city to conduct a public hearing on the annexation as soon as possible and to go door-to-door to solicit the views of residents whose properties would be included. Council members then passed the resolution unanimously.

“We don’t need to delay David (Dornier) and this project any longer than necessary,” she said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.