New County Land-Use Plan Won’T Be Ready This Year Planners Say They Can’T Assemble Large Document By Dec. 31 Deadline

Spokane County won’t be ringing in the new year with an updated comprehensive land-use plan, despite the wishes of two county commissioners.

Top county planners said Tuesday there’s no way they can get the huge document together by the Dec. 31 deadline imposed this fall by commissioners Kate McCaslin and John Roskelley.

McCaslin and Roskelley set the deadline over colleague Phil Harris’ opposition in an effort to get the plan moving.

That drew criticism from some people who thought the two commissioners, who were running for re-election at the time, were trying to rush the plan into existence just in case they lost at the polls.

Both were easily re-elected.

County Planning Director Michael Needham told commissioners Tuesday that planners and volunteer planning commissioners are struggling to complete the capital facilities portion of the document.

That part of the plan outlines how the county will pay for improvements it intends to make to roads, sewers, parks and other infrastructure over the next 20 years.

Some county departments and outside jurisdictions have been slow in providing information necessary to put the capital facilities section together, Needham said.

The comprehensive land-use plan will set policies for how the unincorporated areas of the county grow and develop over the next two decades.

County commissioners agreed Tuesday to postpone a series of public hearings originally scheduled for next month to give planning officials more time to work on the document.

“To avoid confusion, we ought to push them back,” McCaslin said.

Hearings scheduled for Dec. 7, 11 and 13 have been canceled. New hearings probably will be set for late January or early February.

But commissioners made it clear they won’t accept many more delays in drafting the plan, a process that has been under way for more than two years.

“This is starting to drag on ad nauseam, and it’s ridiculous,” McCaslin said. “This has taken long enough.”

Commissioner Phil Harris asked Needham to prepare a “talking paper” that shows which areas of the comprehensive plan are in place, which ones aren’t and which agencies are responsible for providing the information necessary to complete the process.

“I think the only way we’re going to get this done is by putting the pressure on,” Harris said. “We need to know who’s holding it up.”

Roskelley agreed and also suggested adding temporary staff to departments that are lagging behind.

“Maybe we should put some people on, at least for a year, to help get this thing done,” he said.