Ire mounting over dirt dump south of Ridgefield

The property falls on a rural-10 zoning designation. County code mandates that property owners in such a zone must file for a grading and drainage permit when the activity will include more than 200 yards of earth materials on 5 or more acres of land.

Friends of Clark County, a local environmental group that has fought urban sprawl for decades, joined the neighbors’ efforts.

“The development would negatively impact future farming on the fill site,” Sue Marshall, the group’s president who owns a farm in the area, wrote in testimony to the county. “The soil classification of this property is Hillsboro Silt Loam. This is one of the best soils for growing crops and rated among the very highest for productivity.”

After the county approved the permit, neighbors filed an appeal, which appeared before county Land Use Hearings Examiner Daniel Kearns on Dec. 10. During the roughly three-hour hearing, the appellants argued that approval of the permit was based on several discrepancies with existing county policy.

Kearns would reject the appeal a few weeks later. But he noted that the owners appear to be planning a “dirt dump,” possibly from the numerous development projects in northern parts of the county.

“It’s huge,” Kearns said during the hearing. “My eyes popped out when I saw it too.”

320 truck trips a day

The owners of the site, NCNG LLC, purchased it in August 2019. The ownership group includes Nathan Cano of Cano Real Estate and Niall Glavin of Glavin Homes, both Vancouver-based companies.

When asked for comment, the ownership group’s attorney, Jamie Howsley, responded with a statement. Howsley said that the company has met the county’s requirement for the grading permit.

“The county staff agreed with our position, and so did the hearing examiner,” Howsley said. “The neighbors are entitled to process. But at the end of the day, we believe we have met the requisite criteria.”

It remains unclear how much material, exactly, will be brought to the site, and where the material would come from.

County land use officials have estimated that the grading would require about 320 truck trips per day on 179th Avenue. They said the road can handle that load.

“Regular traffic flow should not be greatly affected by trucks bringing fill material to the site,” the owners’ application states.

Neighbors have countered that the number of trucks would still present safety issues on 179th Street and that the trucks might also use smaller, less durable, roads in the area. County officials have said that, because they don’t know where the material would come from, discussion of use of smaller roads is “entirely speculative.”

At the Dec. 10 hearing, another attorney for the group, Armand Resto-Spotts, suggested that the owners might import less than 533,000 cubic yards.

“It’s not uncommon to come in for a grading permit proposal for an amount of fill that you typically do not meet in the end. It’s so that you don’t have to show up in another year and do this all over again,” Resto-Spotts said.

Lawsuit possible

The owners noted in the application that they have “considered building future single-family homes” at the site. If owners pursue that in the future, it could be considered an acceptable use of the property under county code.

Residents are concerned, however, about the impacts on the neighborhood over the next several years.

They’ve hired a land use attorney and are awaiting a decision from county land use officials on a motion to reconsider the matter. If that motion fails, the case could go to Clark County Superior Court.

“We believe that the county is not asking the right questions with this,” Dingethal said. “We don’t believe it’s a simple grading permit.”