Heed Valuable Input For Good Of County Flexibility Needed County Must Welcome Realtors’ Suggestions

Fri., March 31, 2000

By John Webster johnwe@spokesman.com (509) 459-5421

“Somehow in Spokane we have to make sure our biggest industry is not garage sales and our biggest export is not our educated children.” So said Peter R. Thompson, in one of the more important presentations the Spokane County Planning Commission has heard in years. Thompson, whose own son left for a more prosperous city, addressed the commission Thursday on behalf of the Traders Club, an organization of commercial real estate brokers.

It would be easy to sneer that brokers want zoning to welcome commerce only because they’re greedy. It would be easy to focus on process, and infer that it was improper for the commission to listen carefully to citizens who happen to be knowledgeable about economic development trends.

It would be easy to imply something sinister will happen if the Realtors continue to converse with commission members - individually as well as at public meetings like Thursday’s.

It would be easy, but it would be wrong.

The Realtors made valuable suggestions. If heeded, their expertise could help give Spokane County a more progressive and flexible zoning code - one hospitable to the modern economy.

The county’s current code has roots in the 1950s. Unfortunately, proposed revisions would perpetuate that era’s rigid regulatory style. Under each commercial zoning category, certain specified businesses are allowed and any unnamed enterprise is not. The current proposal allows such old industries as broom manufacturing, slaughterhouses, rope makers and pickle factories. It doesn’t mention biomedical engineering or Internet commerce - so they’re banned. This makes Spokane hostile to the future.

John Konen, the Realtors’ consultant and a former county planner, urged the commission to redesign the code, in a way open to fast-changing new businesses the code writers cannot foresee. To do so, the code could regulate characteristics of proposed businesses, such as the amount of noise, pollution and traffic.

The Realtors offered to help with this chore. They and commission members said they’d welcome involvement by any other citizens, as well. This will require intense conversation and negotiation - some of it public, some of it over coffee and in hallways. And that’s no scandal. It’s healthy. Our county’s future hinges on our flexibility, and our openness to change.

* For another opinion, see: Jump to front of line sets bad precedent

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