Posted on 06/21/2011 7:07:34 AM PDT by marktwain
Hopes of turning an informal target shooting area off Ayres Road at the far southeast end of Benton County into a properly managed shooting facility have been shot down.
County officials said the state's Growth Management Act and a related King County court ruling prevent them for allowing a shooting range on land zoned for agriculture. Ag lands must be preserved only for ag-related uses, according to the 2000 case, King County v. Growth Management Act Hearing Board.
"We used to have shooting ranges and even race tracks allowed in our zoning ordinance until 2007, but we had to take them out. And it wasn't something we did lightly," said Michael Shuttleworth, county planning director.
But representatives of the Tri-Cities Metallic Silhouette Association, which has about 400 members, note that the Kennewick Police Department and Benton County Sheriff's Department do their practice shooting on a range on ag land south of Kennewick.
They would like to know why can't the association can't do the same thing on ag land the Kennewick General Hospital District owns near Meals and Ayres roads.
"We have entered into preliminary negotiations with the landowner for a long-term lease, ... but our negotiations are currently stalled due to a zoning issue," wrote Steven C. Schlegel, association board chairman and president, in a May 24 letter to commissioners.
He also said Kennewick General Hospital's land along Ayres Road, where the association wants to develop a shooting range, has been used as "an informal, unorganized firing range," without benefit of "proper safety improvements and rules."
Schlegel said his group is using a small parcel of land owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in rural Franklin County as a shooting range but has no lease and has been looking for a larger replacement range for about two years.
"People don't know where to go to do casual shooting, and going onto private property can risk trespassing," Schlegel said.
Leo Bowman, Benton County Commission chairman, said the county can't accommodate the request right now.
"Not at this time with the zoning rules as they are. But that could change in a few months, maybe by September," he said.
David Baalman, the association vice president, said "there is no way," with state law as it is, to develop a shooting range anywhere in Benton County.
"As a surveyor, I can tell you it's all urban or ag," he said.
Baalman said it is ironic that there is no law against shooting "out there" on public land but there is a law to prevent developing a safe shooting facility on private ag land.
"So what you end up with is people lobbing bullets wherever they want," he added.
Shuttleworth said county officials understand the problem, but are frustrated in trying to help.
"We try to work with people and help, but sometimes we just can't," he said.
The Growth Management Act's restrictions on non-ag uses for land zoned agriculture have even prevented an open field from being made into a soccer field, Shuttleworth said. That was the situation in King County, he noted.
Brad Peck, Franklin County commissioner, said he would like to see a shooting range in Franklin County, and has approached the Bureau of Reclamation about getting a better site than the current one in Smith Canyon at the end of the Pasco-Kahlotus Highway.
"There are several potential sites we're looking at," Peck said.
One is about a mile northeast of the Preston Winery off Highway 395, approximately three miles west of the dunes on bureau land.
"I am a proponent of the Second Amendment, and I think a facility at the east end of the county would be a good complement to what Benton County has with the Rattlesnake Shooting Range," Peck said. That range is off Highway 225 near Benton City.
Schlegel said in his letter to Benton County commissioners that the goal is to provide a larger, safe and responsible public shooting facility.
Zoning was tyranical enough when it was locally controlled. If you had an in with the local power structure,at least you had a chance of getting a variance. The statists saw an opening, however, by making zoning an issue controlled directly by the State, thus preventing even local elites from having a say in how land is used. I am sure that the eventual plan is to have national zoning to control all aspects of land use.
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