Blueprint For County Growth Completed Planning Commission Labored For Two Years On ‘Comp Plan’

After two years of labor and debate, a volunteer panel has a blueprint for how it thinks Spokane County ought to grow.

The comprehensive land-use plan proposed by the county Planning Commission would set the pattern of growth for the next 20 years. It would determine where roads and sewers are constructed, which land remains undeveloped and which is converted to houses and factories.

The proposal includes areas where developers would be encouraged to put apartments atop offices atop stores.

It would reward farmers for leaving most of their land undeveloped by allowing them to develop clusters of relatively small lots. By doing so, landowners could build twice as many houses as otherwise would be allowed.

It has areas designated specifically for urban growth. And it has land reserved for the day when the urban growth areas are full and must be expanded.

The Planning Commission completed the so-called “comp plan” in December and will hold hearings in March. The commission may then make changes before presenting its work to county commissioners, who will hold more hearings before deciding whether to adopt the plan as-is or with changes of their own.

“It’s up to the public now,” said Planning Commission member Curt Messex.

If the process is completed by the end of the year, the comp plan will be three years late. Under the state’s 1990 Growth Management Act, the county was supposed to finish the work by the end of 1997.

“Those timelimes were completely unrealistic,” said John Mercer, county director of long-range planning.

“The law has changed every year since 1990,” making it more difficult to meet deadlines.

In fact, tardiness in complying with elements of the GMA has been typical statewide. The state rarely imposes penalties, unless a county is making no effort to comply.

Spokane County has had a comprehensive plan since 1980. But that document was considered a guideline and could be set aside at the whim of elected officials.

Under the GMA, comprehensive plans must be followed to the letter. Local governments must prove they can provide city-like services - sewers, good roads and the like - to areas that are designated for urban growth.

If those rules had been in place in the 1980s and 1990s, some suburban areas on the North Side and Valley would still be rural. Sewers still are years, and perhaps decades, from reaching some far-flung neighborhoods. Roads are inadequate in fast-growing places like Five Mile Prairie.

As part of the GMA, county commissioners in early 1997 drew “interim” urban growth boundaries separating areas where urban development is encouraged from areas where it is forbidden.

The Planning Commission, which drew proposed permanent boundaries as part of the comprehensive plan, considered testimony from nearly 200 people who wanted either more or less land designated urban.

The Planning Commission recommended few major changes to the boundaries, other than adding more industrial land on the West Plains, North Side and at Liberty Lake. Here and there in residential neighborhoods, the panel recommended minor changes.

Under the proposal, the growth boundaries would be expanded at state Highway 27 in the Valley, just enough to encompass Bernard Daines’ 80 forested acres. Daines, who hopes to develop the land for commercial uses, was one of a number of developers who sued the county, saying the interim growth boundaries were too tight.

The Planning Commission smiled on Daines’ request because he promised to pay for necessary sewer expansions to reach the property, said member Mike Shrader.

Responding to concerns that high-rise apartments could sprout in quiet neighborhoods, the Planning Commission proposes three categories for residential neighborhoods.

Most areas inside the urban boundaries would be zoned for fewer than seven “housing units” per acre. Some neighborhoods near arterials would be slated for seven to 14 units per acre.

Three spots along the route of a proposed east-west commuter train would be zoned for 15 or more housing units. Those “urban villages” at Liberty Lake, University City and the county fairgrounds are where the commission proposes stacking stores, offices and apartments all in the same buildings.

Shrader said the mixed-use concept dates back to the earliest days of Spokane, when people lived in the same neighborhoods where they worked, shopped and sought entertainment.

“We’re trying to bring back the concept of people being able to walk to work,” he said.

North and south of Spokane, just outside the urban growth boundaries, the plan calls for “urban reserves.” There, land could be subdivided into parcels no smaller than 20 acres. The only exception would be city-sized lots, if they were clustered together. Those clusters could include twice as many houses as otherwise would be allowed on the land.

The idea, said Mercer, is to leave as much of the land as possible available for later urban development. Land that’s been converted into five- and 10-acre lots is difficult to later subdivide, he said.

As with the current comprehensive plan, the proposal would set 40 acres as the minimum lot size for prime farmland. Lots could be as small as 10 acres in areas designated “rural.”

A third rural classification, called “rural conservation” would cover perhaps 20 percent of the county, primarily in the western half of the county.

In those areas, which aren’t prime for agriculture but are important to wildlife, the minimum lot size would be 20 acres. As in the urban reserves, the landowner could build twice as many lots by making them small and clustering them together.

Putting together the plan required two years of work for the seven Planning Commission members. From May until December last year, they met once a week, often for the entire day. Mostly they worked in obscurity, with just a handful of county residents paying close attention to the process.

Among the most faithful audience members was Bev Keating of the Marshall Community Coalition. Keating calls the package “a good plan that’s going to bring us into the 21st century.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: INFORMATION Plan to be online

Spokane County staff members are still putting the finishing touches on the comprehensive land-use plan proposed by the Planning Commission, as well as maps needed to illustrate the document. Once completed, the document will be available for viewing in public libraries. CD ROM versions will be available for computer users. It also will be available on the Internet at www.spokanecounty.org/lrp