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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Public comments due this week on Greenstone’s proposed Garden District on South Hill

FILE – This undeveloped property, pictured on March 5, 2018, on Spokane’s South Hill southwest of 29th Avenue and Southeast Boulevard, may soon be developed with houses, multi-family units and commercial development by Greenstone. The commercial development, called the Garden District, is above is the Lincoln Heights area. (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)

A proposed development of 236 homes and 38,000 square feet of office, retail and commercial space on Spokane’s South Hill faces a deadline this week as it seeks approval from City Hall.

Public comments are due this week on an application by Greenstone Homes to create a planned unit development, allowing a mix of uses within one defined development, including residential, commercial and retail uses.

The 25-acre property, which would be called the Garden District, is vacant land southwest of the busy corner of 29th Avenue and Southeast Boulevard that has been slated for development for decades. John Sonneland, a doctor who ran for Congress numerous times in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s and died in 2016, bought the land in the 1960s envisioning large lots and expensive homes.

The development by Greenstone Homes first faced significant resistance from neighbors due to a proposed extension of Crestline Street as a major arterial through the neighborhood. Greenstone said it had no plans to build the extension and criticized the city for saying such an extension was required.

Plans for the development show a neighborhood similar to what Greenstone has done on the old railyard in the West Central neighborhood, now called Kendall Yards, on the north side of the Spokane River. In documents filed with the city, Greenstone said it would build a “more urban style grid system” that would “enable a more pedestrian focus to the community.”

The development would have commercial uses near the development’s north end on 29th, and build residential units near existing homes.

The plans do not show an extension of Crestline.

Comments on the planned unit development are due Friday. For more information, visit my.spokanecity.org/projects/garden-district-pud.