Neighborhoods seek land use, zoning plans

When the Spokane City Council adopted a new growth management land-use plan six years ago, it promised neighborhood groups that it would provide staff resources to fine-tune the details of neighborhood land use and zoning.

But budget cuts in 2004 and 2005 limited how many staff members could be devoted to the job. The neighborhood plans are viewed as pivotal in encouraging growth in urban corridors and centers.

City Hall still hasn’t completed all of the plans they had promised, and some neighbors say they are tired of excuses.

“We’ve been really frustrated,” said Mickey Thompson, a leader in the Nevada/Lidgerwood Neighborhood Council on the North Side, who believes City Hall is more concerned with development in the downtown area than along busy North Side corridors such as Division Street.

He said the neighborhood has set aside $55,000 from its federal block grant funding for community development to offset the cost of the plan, but still can’t get City Hall to move ahead with the work, which would redefine where homes, apartments, offices and business will be located in the future. Now, the neighborhood is under a deadline for spending that block grant money.

Thompson said that single-family housing along Wellesley Avenue, for example, is no longer viable because of heavy traffic, and that the strip should be rezoned for multifamily, office or retail use.

He said the neighborhood has submitted a detailed proposal, which includes a pedestrian overpass on Division Street at Franklin Park and development of a community center with swimming pools at the park. It also calls for commercial development along East Francis Avenue and in business pockets along Nevada Street.

“We’ve been working on this for years, and they (city staff) won’t let us implement it,” Thompson said.

Spokane City Councilman Al French, who is challenging Mayor Dennis Hession for the city’s top job this fall, said he has been pushing for a more aggressive program for neighborhood planning for years, but has run into a series of obstacles.

Last fall, the council approved funding for two additional neighborhood planners, but Hession diverted one of the two staffers to a program for implementing existing plans in neighborhood business centers.

That staffer is working on developing, among other things, pedestrian amenities and business façade improvements. Grants are typically available for those types of upgrades, but often require coordination among various agencies and private property owners.

Hession’s idea is to get results from previously completed plans in places like Hillyard, Manito Center, West Broadway Avenue and South Perry Street.

Leroy Eadie, acting city planning director, said neighborhood representatives across the city have been seeking planning help, and the city is moving ahead on several new fronts this year, but changing land-use designations isn’t a cure-all for inducing new economic vitality.

Currently under development are plans for the Garland Business District, North Monroe Street Business District and a series of historic dwellings near Huckleberry’s Natural Market in the Cliff-Cannon neighborhood.

Last year’s land-use and zoning changes in the East Central neighborhood came as the result of a large federal grant and six years of work, in part through guidance of Eastern Washington University’s regional and urban planning department and Spokane community colleges.

Residents and property owners in the Indian Trail, Lincoln Heights, Southgate and Latah Creek areas also are seeking new land-use plans.