City Council Extends Moratorium On Further Housing Developments

In/Around: Five Mile Prairie

Five Mile Prairie has been given a bit more development-free time.

The Spokane City Council this week voted unanimously to extend the prairie’s housing moratorium through May 23 while the Planning Department finalizes plans for developer impact fees.

“We need more time to develop those fees,” Irv Reed, director of planning services, recently told the council. “It’s more complicated than we thought it would be.”

Council members last fall approved the fees that require developers to pay for growth impacts.

A developer can choose to donate land instead of paying the fees.

Money raised by the fees would be used for widening streets, and building new parks and fire stations.

Councilman Orville Barnes, a member of the Five Mile Prairie planning committee, told his colleagues the proposed fee rates should come before the council for approval in April.

The fees were part of a plan devised by the committee to help solve growth-related problems on the prairie. Poor roads, lack of parks and slow police and fire response on Five Mile caused the council last May to temporarily halt housing applications on the prairie.

The moratorium can’t last longer than a year, so it must be lifted by May of this year.