Planners extend hearings on land rules

Parking lots, light poles, horse boarding, lot sizes, earth moving, fire hazards, billboards, noise impacts and many other topics spread over three hours of public testimony Thursday, prompting the Spokane Valley Planning Commission to extend public hearings for three of the meatiest sections of the city’s new development code.

“We have a heck of a lot more questions than we have information on hand or answers,” said Commissioner John Carroll. “We owe it to everyone to get more information and answers.”

The questions came from developers, business owners and neighborhood groups that had comments on 138 pages of regulations covering what gets built where and how in the Valley.

“This is a huge thing, and it will really affect the character of this city,” said Nancy Nishimura, a business owner and member of the city’s sign committee.

She, along with neighborhood activists and representatives for developers, had a rare common goal: that the city give people more time to comment and read the code before it is sent to the City Council for approval.

“This is impossible for everyone to go through,” said Mary Pollard.

A representative of the fast-developing Greenacres neighborhood, Pollard has concerns over the new developments that surround her farmhouse.

The topics she and neighbors testified on included grading permits, vibrations from construction equipment, impact fees, light pollution and housing density, as well as new rules on keeping horses and other animals, which are forbidden in most cases under the current rules.

Business owners suggested their own tweaks to the code.

After 10 years in business, Bill Szabrowicz is looking for a place to expand his car repair and towing company, but under the new zoning he’s not sure where he could put it.

Commissioner Marcia Sands sympathized with him and said the commission should look into where repair shops are allowed.

“We have them all over the place, and we need them all over the place,” she said.

When it comes to the required number of parking spaces for stores and how far they can be from the building, developer Tom Vandervert said many large retailers such as Costco and Target wouldn’t have been able to build on their present sites under the proposed rules

“It just doesn’t pencil out for these larger areas,” he said.

Another business property developer said the rules would allow him to put an espresso stand in the parking lot of his new building but would prohibit a drive-through window at a coffee shop in the actual shopping center.

The city faces a state-mandated March 31 deadline to adopt the entire uniform development code, which implements the comprehensive plan adopted by the city last year. Initially, Thursday’s meeting contained the only official public hearings on the chapters scheduled on advance agendas of the Planning Commission or City Council, or on the calendar posted at the city’s Web site.

After their discussion Thursday, it’s likely the Planning Commission members will devote more public meetings to the chapters, and Mayor Diana Wilhite said the council will probably schedule at least two public hearings on the development code.

“There’s a lot of information that people need to cover, and we want to be sure that they have time to do it,” she said.