City Council Denies Amendment Request Indian Trail Neighborhood Council’S Objections To Proposal Noted

Thu., Dec. 21, 2000

By Isamu Jordan isamuj@spokesman.com

After nearly a year of political process, the Indian Trail Neighborhood Council triumphed over a developer’s push to change their neighborhood specific plan.

The Spokane City Council voted Monday to deny a request to amend the Indian Trail Neighborhood Specific Plan to make room for another shopping center in the northwest Spokane neighborhood.

“I feel that was really the only decision they could have made based on the testimony and the facts,” said Cheryl Flemming, co-chair of the Indian Trail Neighborhood Council.

The City Council heard over an hour of testimony on the issue last week and deferred its vote until this week. The council’s vote was 6-0, with Councilwoman Roberta Greene absent.

In order to move forward with his plan to build a 19-acre shopping center on the east side of Indian Trail Road south of Lowell Avenue, Sunset West developer Leif Sorenson needed to amend the neighborhood plan to enable a zone change from residential to business.

The site is adjacent to the 30-acre Sundance Plaza shopping center, which is scheduled to be completed by 2004.

Sorenson’s proposed shopping center would be a neighborhood center with cafes and shops, not a big-box mall.

In September, the city Plan Commission recommended that the City Council deny the plan amendment based on five criteria, centered around the public benefit of a plan amendment.

The Plan Commission found that the amendment proposal is inconsistent with the policies and goals of the neighborhood plan and the city’s arterial street plan, because of traffic impacts to Strong Road.

Before the council voted, Cherie Rodgers, who helped draft the Indian Trail plan, urged the council to leave the plan intact.

City Council adopted the Indian Trail plan in 1995.

Sorenson has an opportunity to appeal the council’s decision but said on Tuesday he is uncertain what he wil do.

“I don’t know what our next move is. We’ll be looking at it and trying to re-analyze what the next step will be,” Sorenson said.

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