City Repair Shop Study Ok’d Over Logan Dissent

Despite opposition from Logan residents, the Spokane City Council on Monday approved money for a traffic study that could lead to an expanded vehicle maintenance center in the neighborhood.

“If the traffic study doesn’t come out good for the Logan neighborhood, I want to know now so we can move on,” Councilman Jeff Colliton said.

Sister Noreena Carr, co-chair of the Logan Neighborhood Association, urged the council to “terminate all plans to build this facility” in the neighborhood.

“It is morally irresponsible,” she said. “It is dangerous to deliberately add hundreds of city vehicles to this residential neighborhood.”

The study will cost almost $60,000. The city has already spent $354,000 on preliminary planning.

City vehicles are now serviced and stored at different locations around Spokane.

City officials want to build a single maintenance center for its fleet of snowplows, garbage haulers and other trucks. The city-owned property at Perry and North Foothills Drive seems the most likely spot, although City Council members say they aren’t committed to it.

The council voted 4-1 to pay for the study.

“I don’t think this is the place for this facility,” said Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers, who cast the lone dissenting vote.

The study, by ALSC Architects of Spokane, will help determine how traffic and air quality in the neighborhood would be affected by the proposed 30-acre maintenance center.

Councilwoman Roberta Greene, wavering in her support for the traffic study and the project, said she hopes the center can be an asset to the community.

“It has to stimulate the neighborhood in some way. Maybe it can include a park, and maybe public meeting rooms,” she said.

Council members applauded the neighborhood for their well-organized presentation. For nearly two hours, neighbors offered arguments against the project, which would operate 24 hours a day.

They described potential damage to the aquifer due to hazardous materials, such as oil from the city trucks. They also expressed concerns about air pollution.

If the facility is built, residents said it would be a matter of time before the city outgrows it. There is no room for expansion at the site, they said.

In the meantime, the quality of life in the neighborhood would have been destroyed, they said.

Speakers encouraged the council to look for an alternate site on the West Plains.

The Logan Neighborhood Association has also filed an appeal with the city Planning Commission, opposing a finding that the expanded facility will have no significant environmental impacts.

Logan resident Ann Schneider encouraged the council to help improve the neighborhood, rather than industrialize it.

“Let’s plan for people, not vehicles,” she said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Map: Proposed City of Spokane maintenance facility