Club Wants To Change Spokane River Shoreline Laws Rules Sought To Allow Spokane Club To Build Parking Garage On Main

Current city laws won’t allow the Spokane Club to build a parking garage above the Spokane River.

So the club hopes to change them.

Last February, the hearing examiner dashed the club’s plans to put a five-story, 137-space garage next to its athletic center on Main Avenue. Greg Smith said the plan violated the city’s shoreline management plan, a set of rules for land along the river.

During a public meeting at the private club Monday, Dwight Hume - the club’s planning consultant - explained a proposal to change the city’s shoreline plan to fit the garage plan.

Fewer than 10 people came to the meeting, which is required by the city’s Planning Commission. The commission will consider the club’s proposal next month.

Currently, the riverbank between Riverside State Park and Monroe Street is designated a “Downriver Conservancy Environment.” The parking garage isn’t appropriate because that category of land only allows “low-intensity recreational uses,” Smith said in his written decision.

The land east of Monroe Street is designated as the Central Falls Urban Intensive Environment. A parking garage could get a permit in that area.

The club wants the city to move the boundary of the urban environment from Monroe to Jefferson Street.

Hume said the club proposed the amendment to the planning commission in 1994, when the city revised the shoreline plan. The commission adopted the change but the city shelved the entire plan to focus on growth management planning, which also includes a shoreline component.

“This is something we knew was acceptable to the Plan Commission,” Hume said of their proposal.“We’re not doing anything out of the ordinary.”

But Gavin Cooley of the Neighbors of the Spokane Falls and Rapids disagreed, saying the 1994 revised plan also required new buildings be at least 25 feet back from the edge of a cliff overlooking the river.

“They’re taking that amendment in isolation, ignoring the part that requires a 25-foot setback,” said Cooley, whose group formed last year to fight the proposal.

Jim Kolva, who was president of the Plan Commission during the shoreline plan rewrite, said there was a lot of talk among members about what was appropriate for the river bank.

“We didn’t want another wall … along the river,” said Kolva, who attended Monday’s meeting.

Club officials say they need more parking spaces to serve their members, who now must park in nearby lots and along the street stretching to Peaceful Valley.

Any changes the city makes to the shorelines plan must be reviewed by the state Department of Ecology. If DOE gives its OK, the club would need to go back to the city’s hearing examiner to approve the garage proposal.

Kristina Johnson can be reached at (509) 459-5312, or by e-mail at kristinaj@spokesman.com.

WHAT’S NEXT? The Plan Commission plans a public hearing on the proposed change to the shoreline management plan Nov. 10 at 1:30 p.m. in the council chambers of City Hall, 808 W. Riverside.