Planning Panel Told To Consider New Supermarket City Council Action Could Assist Proposal For Grocery Store At Third And Thor

The Spokane City Council took a sharp detour on the drive to growth management Monday.

In a 4-3 vote, the council gave its overburdened Plan Commission more work to do by ordering it to consider a big new supermarket at Third and Thor streets.

The commission is 18 months late on its initial deadline to comply with the state’s Growth Management Act for Spokane.

Monday resolution adds to the workload.

It specifically directs the commission to consider developments in “economically depressed areas such as community development block grant neighborhoods.”

Developer Judy Hart wants to raze what’s left of a four-block area along Interstate 90 and construct a 130,000-square-foot shopping center.

The controversial project just happens to match the language in the resolution.

“The specificity in that resolution is so strong you know it’s a political boondoggle thing,” said Eric Johnson, chairman of the East Central Neighborhood Council.

Council members Phyllis Holmes, Rob Higgins, Jeff Colliton and Orville Barnes voted in favor of the resolution.

Mayor John Talbott and council members Cherie Rodgers and Roberta Greene dissented.

Residents of the neighborhood are increasingly opposed to the Hart project because it would add traffic to the already congested freeway interchange.

Any public hearings on an amendment to the existing land-use plan are likely to be contentious and time consuming. A proposal by Tidyman’s for an East Central supermarket was defeated after years of debate.

By approving the resolution, council members are in effect saying they want the commission to consider Hart’s project and to write the new growth law at the same time.

Hart has been unable to get started because two of the four blocks she owns are designated for residential use in the existing comprehensive plan.

She told the council the shopping center would create 250 jobs in a neighborhood that needs them.

Her site also has been eyed by the state Department of Transportation for future widening of I-90 and an interchange for a north-south freeway.

Planning Director Charlie Dotson said Monday’s vote by the council undoubtedly will delay completion of growth management.

“I don’t know how all of this is going to turn out,” he said.

City officials and citizens have spent years working on state-mandated revisions of both the comprehensive plan and zoning code.

The new laws are intended to control urban sprawl by concentrating more development closer to the city core.

Several years ago, the council suspended any considerations of amendments to the existing plan in lieu of the new growth management law.

Monday, the council said it wants a handful of specifically qualified projects like Hart’s supermarket to be delayed no longer.

The others that fall under the resolution are automotive specialty stores currently prohibited in neighborhood business areas and ministorage units.

Last week, council members rejected an appeal by Brian Layton to build 100 storage units on the Cheney-Spokane Road across from a Tidyman’s store.

The project was rejected by the city hearing examiner and the council because it conflicted with the existing comprehensive plan written by the neighborhood for the Latah Valley.

Monday’s resolution specifically orders the Plan Commission to consider such a project in an amendment to that neighborhood’s comprehensive plan.

Council members who favored the resolution said the city cannot continue to hold up progress. It wants action now so Hart and others can get done within a year.

But Dotson said it would take at least a year just to finish the plan amendments, zoning hearings and building permits required under current law.

Al French, who represents neighborhood councils before the Plan Commission, said the city could endanger its state transportation funds if it delays growth management any longer.

The state can withhold money if a local government fails to comply with growth management.

The city competes for at least $1.5 million in discretionary state transportation grants a year, officials said.