Airway Heights’ water supply featured prominently in City Council actions at meetings in late February through early March.
At its March 2 meeting, the council adopted an ordinance changing how the city measures water demand when it comes to new development. The “Water Concurrency” ordinance increases the number of ERU’s — equivalent residential units — that would be available to developers at the time of submitting building permits and on an annual basis for water consumption.
According to the ordinance, concurrency means “land use approval is supported by the development of adequate public facilities, which have the capacity to serve development without decreasing levels of service below the established minimums.” The ordinance also notes the city has entered into a development agreement with the city of Spokane for completion of capital projects to help bring additional water to Airway Heights between 2026 – 2046.
Airway Heights is looking at purchasing more water from Spokane due to several factors, including restarting two wells idled since they were discovered in 2017 to be contaminated by firefighting chemicals likely emanating from Fairchild Air Force Base and Spokane International Airport.
Restarting the wells would have resulted in Airway Heights not having to purchase up to 300 million gallons of water annually from Spokane beginning this year. In an ordinance adopted by council in December increasing water rates, the city stated it “now expects to purchase all the water its needs from the City of Spokane.”
Among several steps, the ordinance passed at the March meeting increases “single family residential ERU’s from 20 per calendar year to 25 for January to June and 25 for July to
December of each year for a total of 50 ERU’s per developer per year.” It also includes “Missing Middle Housing” units in that ERU allocation, updates the multifamily definition and increases those ERUs from 16 to 30 and increases the commercial and industrial allocations to 20 units.
“We measure our water because we are giving our water to projects, new development and we are also buying our water from an outside source, which is the city of Spokane,” Airway Heights Principal Planner Heather Trautman said.
Council approves water plan contract
At its Feb. 17 meeting, council unanimously approved a contract with Community Engineering and consulting to include work requested by the state Department of Health into the city’s water plan. Some of the work is required due to the department’s delay in completing its review of the city’s plan while other parts are due to Health’s additional requirements not included in the original scope of work.
Two major components not included in the original scope is the department’s requirement for the city to prepare a new Water Use Efficiency (WUE) report, the one from 2021 was not accepted, that is in compliance with the Municipal Water Law. The second component is preparation of an asset management plan (AMP) for the water system, with the department agreeing to a “truncated AMP” meeting Health’s requirements “with the understanding that the City may want to invest in a larger scale AMP for all of the City’s infrastructure.”
The $33,430 contract for the plan work will be covered by water utility funds.
Council accepts CHIP awards
Also at the Feb. 17 meeting, council unanimously approved acceptance of two Connecting Housing to Infrastructure (CHIP) grants totaling $1,495,344. The city applied for the grants from the state Department of Commerce in September, 2025, after it was approached by two nonprofit affordable housing organizations — Habitat for Humanity and Community Frameworks.
The nonprofits asked the city to partner with them on the grant applications to help offset costs to their Highland Village low-income housing development: Phase 3 by Community Frameworks and Phase 4 by Habitat for Humanity. The grants will pay for what are referred to as “general facility charges.”
General facility charges (GFCs), also known as “connection fees” are one-time required costs on new or expanded developments to cover their equitable share of the associated water and wastewater infrastructure costs to the system. The fees pay for additional capacity for the developments, and often cover system expansion funding.
Community Frameworks receives $495,344 while Habitat for Humanity receives $1 million, with both amounts requested by the organizations. Council also passed updates last October to the city’s municipal code required by the grant to make sure the GFCs can be waived from the developer’s responsibility so long as another funding source is obtained to cover the costs.
Originating Agency Number (ORI) follow up
A story in the February issue of the West Plains Stream noted the City Council passed an ordinance at its Feb. 2 meeting establishing a Prosecutor’s Office within the Municipal Court, a move that helps the court get reimbursed for fees and costs associated with prosecutions. The Washington State Patrol requires an Originating Agency Number (ORI) from an agency in order to reimburse it for these costs.
In a March 6 interview on another issue, City Manager Albert Tripp said the move also allows the Prosecutor’s Office to obtain access to specific criminal information as well.
Airway Heights Prosecutor Laura House said they use a system known as JABS — Judicial Access Browser System — to obtain past criminal data on an individual from most jurisdictions in Washington state. When it comes to crimes such as domestic violence, or driving under the influence, House said it is “vital for me as a prosecutor” to also access national criminal history quickly, something the ORI will now enable the office to do.
House said this information is necessary to assess the risk of a person charged, a specific victim’s risk if it is a domestic violence crime as well as release information for crimes if it is the first charged infraction for that individual or if there are multiple previous charges or convictions.
House said she usually relies on the Police Department to obtain this information from the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which also lists factors such as an individual’s aliases to “anything a person has been charged with in every state in the U.S.” House said this isn’t a problem relying on the department for the information, but a problem can arise when there is a delay getting the information from “from anyone else and you need that information immediately.”
“Now that the process is complete, I’ll always be able to access that information in time to make the proper recommendations, particularly at first appearances, in order to protect victim safety in particular and community safety in general as much as possible,” she added.
