Indian Trail Plan Returns City Council Will Look At Latest Revision Of Land-Use Document

With more renditions than a James Bond movie, the Indian Trail neighborhood plan goes back before the Spokane City Council tonight.

The city Plan Commission gave unanimous approval to the land-use document for the second time last Wednesday.

This will be the fourth time it has been considered in some form by the council.

And the Indian Trail plan could still face a legal challenge by developer Harlan Douglass.

But the latest version of the document gives Douglass and his attorney some of what they want.

And, like Bond, the new version has some features that have been evident from the onset.

The City Council will take testimony on the plan starting at 7 tonight.

The council is expected to add any changes its deems necessary after the public hearing and vote tonight on the plan.

This version removes an absolute limit on the number of new units that could be built in Indian Trail.

Instead, the plan rezones land lot by lot with each privately owned parcel allotted a certain number of units, even though areas may never be developed.

If development were to occur on all this land, a prospect considered unlikely, the number of additional units in Indian Trail would be between 3,400 and 3,700.

Cliff Cameron, a surveyor who works for Douglass, disputes these numbers and said steep slopes and the lack of sewer lines would exclude large areas from development.

He places the number of possible units at 1,690 and argues for a higher density in areas where building can occur.

But Planning Director Charlie Dotson said the city has no choice but to allocate some density to each land, unless it is publicly owned.

The newest version of the plan also eliminates the linkage of public transit and road projects to new land divisions, also an issue with Douglass.

Instead, the latest version calls on the city to plan new roads and find a solution to air quality issues along Francis Avenue.

In doing so, the city would allocate a share of those costs to each developer. Building permits can then be issued whether or not the projects go forward.

The plan also clarifies some issues sought by neighborhood groups: Gated communities cannot be built in the middle of existing residential neighborhoods.

There is also a provision that eliminates so-called bonus density except by exchanging steep slopes and open space for more units.

The plan commission also decided that it cannot prohibit city annexation north of the Bonnevile Power Administration power lines and that it cannot mandate impact fees for Indian Trail if it is not requiring those fees in other neighborhoods. Provisions of the plan that addressed those issues were made advisory.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Map of area