Spokane County, cities butt heads on population growth

Spokane County commissioners are again at odds with other local government officials and neighborhood groups regarding how and where population growth will occur during the next two decades.

Al French, Shelly O’Quinn and Todd Mielke cast the only votes against population projections provided by a coalition of planning staff from the county, cities, towns, public transportation agencies and Fairchild Air Force Base. A vote last week at Spokane City Hall was the first step in a process mandated by state law that “sets the table” for building roads, sewers and other infrastructure in preparation for future growth, said Steve Davenport, a senior planner for the county.

That process has been contentious in recent years, as an alliance of neighborhood groups has fought commissioners’ ideas about which parts of the county should be urbanized.

A several-year process that ended in 2013 remains without resolution, as the county and neighborhood organizers continue negotiations.

“It’s the long-standing tension between nobody likes sprawl and nobody likes density,” French said in an interview. “You can’t have both.”

County commissioners questioned the accuracy of projections made using data from the past 12 years, pointing out that the economy was pulling itself out of a recession. Mielke questioned why planners chose a 12-year window for their analysis when the projection was made for the end of 20 years.

“I look at that time period, and I’m going, ‘Why that time period?’ ” Mielke said at the meeting. “When I look at a (12-year) period, where roughly two years of it is still economic growth, and then we just go into a flat line or a decline for the remaining eight years, I’m not sure that’s the right period to look at.”

Spokane City Councilman Jon Snyder said the numbers provided by the planning coalition are “sound” and “defensible.” Planning analysts used the 2003 data because the cities of Spokane Valley and Liberty Lake had both incorporated, they said.

“I think (Mielke) is just trying to manipulate the numbers to get the numbers that he likes,” Snyder said.

O’Quinn said there are consequences to population forecasts that are too low, pointing to overcrowding in the Central Valley School District.

“Their growth rates, they’re at 2018 levels right now, based on their projections,” O’Quinn said.

O’Quinn urged the group to look at the growth numbers in school districts and other areas, which she said better reflected reality.

Dave Andersen, a representative from the Washington Department of Commerce who helped draft the population forecasts, also cautioned against setting the bar too high.

“The consequences of predicting high, and predicting for more people than actually come, are that you’ve now sized your infrastructure for more people than you actually have, and you’re counting on a revenue base that never shows up,” Andersen said. He said predicting low is reversible, but setting an unattainable population goal leads to planning decisions that can’t be undone easily.

French challenged the representatives of cities and towns to set realistic goals for density and infill. He put some of the blame on himself for the city of Spokane failing to show it had met its population target, because of his time on the Spokane City Council in the 2000s. But he said the other governments have an obligation to make realistic goals, because their miscalculations have effects on the county’s analysis.

“I think we need to be, as a group, much more diligent about jurisdictions that said, ‘Yeah, we can do ‘X,’ and folks, it’s now gone on more than 15 years we’ve had this plan, and some of the communities haven’t achieved ‘X’ yet. How long do we wait? How long do we wait?”

Snyder said after the meeting that French’s comments were premature. He said the city of Spokane was forecast to add 20,000 people, and the Kendall Yards development alone would achieve half that number.

“In short, the reality doesn’t really line up with his assertions on that,” Snyder said.

The city has not yet released a study showing it will meet its goal, county commissioners say.

Last week’s vote puts the responsibility on county commissioners to adopt final population projections. Their deadline to do so is June 2017.