Planners Brace For Late Changes As City’S Comprehensive Plan Takes Shape, Worries Surface

It could be a blueprint for the city’s future, a new way to plan neighborhoods, a fresh picture of the city as it grows into the 21st century.

Or not.

Some Spokane Plan Commission members are feeling nervous as they embark on weeks of work and long hours shaping policies developed by citizen volunteers into the city’s new comprehensive plan.

Will the final document adopted by the City Council look anything like the plan envisioned by citizens, planners and the Plan Commission?

Or will businesses, developers, attorneys and others not involved in the process so far present a case for a last-minute overhaul?

City Council members are expected to vote on the plan in mid-January after conducting a series of public meetings and workshops.

“I’m worried that if we don’t have buy-in from the council, this will all fall through,” said George Nachtsheim, a longtime Plan Commission member.

“This is the single most important thing we’ve had on the table,” he said.

Policies and goals created by Spokane Horizons volunteers point toward focused growth and mixed-use neighborhoods with shopping, schools and parks within easy walking distance of homes.

Plans are in the works for the city as a whole, the downtown core and Riverfront Park. They all will become part of the 20-year comprehensive plan.

So far, nothing is set in concrete.

Citizens will have several opportunities this fall to study and comment on various alternatives as well as the economic and environmental costs of each.

Suzanne Knapp, representing the Spokane Homebuilders Association, offered expertise from her group to point out potential pitfalls in the plan as it takes shape.

“It’s the council’s responsibility to consider every concern,” Knapp said. “If the City Council just rubber-stamped what the planning commission did, I’d be worried.”

Council members have been given regular updates on the progress of the plan and public involvement.

“People have to know from the beginning this is the process being used and we are committed to it,” Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers said.

Chris Hugo, who is overseeing the Spokane Horizons planning process for the city, said state law requires the final plan to be based on the public record developed throughout the process, not the last hour.

Plan Commission member Ted Horobiowski said several commissioners share Nachtsheim’s concerns.

“The planning commission will go through a full set of hearings, then 11th-hour lobbying brings up all kinds of changes,” he said.

“All the work we do upfront doesn’t necessarily make the end result any more predictable,” Horobiowski said.

Many Plan Commission members recall spending five years in the late 1980s revising the city’s antiquated zoning code and conducting months of public hearings, only to see the plan shelved.

“In this case, I think we have gone extremely far in identifying and contacting special-interest groups,” Horobiowski said.

“The opportunity has been there for everyone to participate,” Nachtsheim said.