City Council To Consider Land-Use Change Once Again

A drive-through pharmacy’s long journey to a North Hill neighborhood soon may be coming to an end.

Spokane City Council members on Monday again will consider a land-use change they originally approved more than a year ago.

The North Hill neighborhood appealed last year’s decision allowing the Walgreens Rxpress, to Spokane County Superior Court, which recently ruled in the pharmacy’s favor.

Residents’ battles to keep the Walgreens at bay began nearly two years ago, when the city’s Plan Commission refused to change the neighborhood’s land-use plan.

The land on the southeast corner of Maple Street and Garland Avenue currently is zoned for apartments or offices, not commercial development.

By a 4-3 vote, the council overturned the commission’s decision. Mayor Jack Geraghty and council members Phyllis Holmes and Chris Anderson dissented.

After that, city hearing examiner Greg Smith approved a permit for the new pharmacy - a decision the neighborhood appealed to the council, which overruled the neighborhood. The vote was 5-2, with Anderson and Holmes again dissenting. The neighborhood again appealed, this time to Superior Court.

Sandra Buss, who lead the neighborhood’s opposition, said her group would like to see the case all the way to the state Supreme Court. “Financially, Walgreens has all the cards,” Buss said. “It would take finances a small neighborhood group does not have.”

The neighborhood long has argued they spent $27,000 of federal taxpayer money to devise the North Hill plan, only to have it dismantled by the city.

, DataTimes