Building setbacks

The Feb. 3 Spokesman-Review reported that financiers want the code on building setbacks facing Riverfront Park repealed to allow construction that would block sunlight from the park (“Changes to city rules could allow high-rise development along Riverfront Park”) .

The existing rule is a compromise between market values and social values.

If the council throws out the protection, it will join the national trend of de-regulation, unleashing development near the park. More big empty buildings. “The sky’s the limit!”

Over decades, the proliferation of big buildings has walled off much of downtown from the Spokane River. Our senses have forgotten its nearness.

The cheerleading article assumes that big buildings benefit Spokane, and repeats a quote that they “generate a spark.” I say they generate a chill by increasing the hours of shade and cold in public space. This simple point is conspicuously absent from the article.

Let the park work as designed, with deciduous trees shading in summer and welcoming the winter sun.

We must question old assumptions: That development is good, especially when it means private profit at the expense of public good. That surface parking lots are bad. If they are to be the only surviving open space downtown, I’ll settle for that.

Let us resist unregulated capitalism’s dark, cold reign.

Morton Alexander

Spokane