Valley Folks Say Growth Plan Needs Tweaking

If Spokane Valley residents get their way, planning commissioners’ work on the comprehensive land use plan is not done.

About 25 people took two hours Thursday night to tell the planning commission what they didn’t like about Draft Plan 2000. About 50 people attended the hearing at Horizon Junior High School.

While most speakers lauded the commission for their work and vision, everyone who spoke said they had concerns about the draft plan.

Rob Amsden, who lives in Veradale, said the new plan contains too much subjective language that would leave decisions up to the interpretation of county planners and developers.

“I would ask that you look for those subjective words and try to eliminate them, define them or massage the text a little,” he said.

Planning commissioners have spent about two years updating the county’s land-use plan under the state’s Growth Management Act guidelines. The 600-page plan is designed to stop sprawl and concentrate growth.

Several speakers said the new guidelines end the development they had planned for their land.

Bob Bonuccelli owns 33 acres of land east of Pines Road and north of Mirabeau Parkway. Under the draft plan, his land would be slated an urban activity center.

An urban center is designed to encourage developers to build apartments, offices and stores in an area that is easily walkable and has access to public transportation. Planners told Bonuccelli an urban center would ideally have highdensity apartments on about 20 percent of the land.

“I don’t want any residential on my site,” he said. “The design that we have for the site is specifically for industrial high-tech office buildings.”

He suggested that the county give landowners whose parcels would be down-zoned by the new land-use plan a 10-year window to use their current zoning.

John Konen, speaking on behalf of the Traders Club, a group of nearly 70 commercial and industrial real estate agents, said growth management plans for urban activity centers are a lot like motherhood and apple pie.

“I think we can probably all agree with the nature of the statements,” he said. “It’s the implementation that is going to be scary.”

He urged the planning commissioners to consider incentives for developers in those areas, rather than layers of bureaucracy.

Harry Ball has been developing land in the Belle Terre neighborhood and along Sullivan Road for about 40 years.

He told planning commissioners he was making plans for homes on 32 acres he owns east of Sullivan when “the rug was pulled from underneath us.”

He brought sewer to all the homes he built, including his undeveloped land. He wants to build about one house per acre, but the draft plan would limit development to one house on five acres.

“Rather than cause a lot of problems, knock an old man of 80 years of age down after all these years, I would like some serious consideration,” he said.

Mark Richard, who represented the Spokane Homebuilders Association and Spokane Association of Realtors, said the county and city seem to be eyeing the same areas of land adjacent to the city for future development.

He asked them to work with the city to make sure they are not counting on the same land, because they might need to extend the urban growth boundaries.

Also, Richard said he sold real estate in the Valley for 10 years and he’s concerned that the draft plan would make it impossible for people to build homes on one- or two-acre lots.

“I can tell you that one of the reasons why they came to the Valley, whether they were from Spokane or whether they were new to town, was because they loved the fact that they could pick up a little bit of space around them,” he said.

Margaret Mortz asked planners to take more steps to preserve the land surrounding the Dishman Hills Natural Area. She lives in the Ponderosa neighborhood.

“It looks like it is open to development and I think instead it should be seriously considered for either rural conservation or open space,” Mortz said.

County planners will consider the comments and make any changes to the draft plan before forwarding it to county commissioners, who may adopt the plan before the end of the year.