Planning panel postpones Dusty zone change request

Garth Meyer, Gazette Reporter | Oct 11, 20180

Whitman County Planning Commission last Wednesday, Oct. 3, voted to postpone the continuation of a zone change hearing on behalf of McCoy Land Company, which asked to stay their request following a meeting Sept. 5 on their proposed four-pad grain pile project just outside Dusty.

The hearing will now resume Feb. 6 of next year.

Before the commission’s meeting last week, McCoy, a subsidiary of Pacific Northwest Farmers Cooperative, sent a letter to Alan Thomson, Whitman County planner, to announce its intention to seek a conditional use permit for the 66 acres at Dusty.

If granted, the permit would make a zone change unnecessary.

PNW has not yet sent their application for the permit. Once it arrives at the planning department, Thomson and staff will go over it, to make sure it is complete, then refer it to Mark Storey, Public Works director, who will appoint a hearings examiner to consider the application.

PNW stated in their Sept. 25 letter that they would prefer a hearing examiner for the process instead of going before the county’s board of adjustment.

The five-member board of adjustment hears matters of conditional use permits and variances such as when a home builder requests an exception to a building regulation under certain circumstances.

Rulings by a hearing examiner or board of adjustment can be appealed to superior court.