Homeowner airs concerns over Comprehensive Plan
Only one person testified on Spokane Valley’s new Comprehensive Plan during a public hearing Monday night at Centennial Middle School. But her comments on development proposed in the Ponderosa neighborhood highlighted a broader challenge facing the City Council as it looks to preserve Spokane Valley neighborhoods while planning for more housing in the city.
“We don’t think we should have to fight to keep our neighborhood’s character reasonably the same,” said Gail Stiltner. Most homes in Ponderosa were built on lots an acre or larger, and homeowners like Stiltner have been fighting proposals to build subdivisions there at higher densities.
After the hearing, the council reviewed several of the 20-year plan’s land-use goals, including one that would “preserve and protect the character of Spokane Valley’s residential neighborhoods.”
The council decided to leave the goal in the plan, but only after questioning how the city will be able to live up to the goal and still allow the level of building on underdeveloped lots to achieve the density required under the state’s Growth Management Act.
Councilman Mike Flanigan said he feared the goal could lead to vocal neighborhoods like Ponderosa and north Greenacres blocking infill development while new homes are pushed into areas where residents simply aren’t as organized.
“We will be saying to the people of Greenacres, ‘You’re right. We can’t allow that,’ ” Flanigan said.
Greenacres residents have opposed rapid development there, and as open fields turn into subdivisions many would like to see the neighborhood remain a semirural area.
The city also will have to be careful not to create slums by relegating cheaper developments and apartment complexes to areas where no one else wants to live, said Councilman Mike DeVleming.
Both DeVleming and Flanigan, though, said it will be tough to make neighborhoods denser given that open space was what drew many people to Spokane Valley in the first place.
“The vast majority of folks are looking for elbow room and value,” DeVleming said.
The Comprehensive Plan estimates that the Valley’s population will grow by about 20,000 people in the next 20 years.
Planners say new zoning regulations, which will be crafted after the Comprehensive Plan is in place, will help to accommodate those new residents without destroying the look and feel of existing neighborhoods.
They also point to a policy in the Comprehensive Plan that would change the rezoning rules to make it harder to increase the density of zoning in residential lots.
Other policies in the land-use section that provoked council discussion Monday included design standards that would more tightly regulate the appearance and scale of buildings in mixed-use areas.
Developers are the ones who take a financial risk in designing their buildings a certain way, said Councilman Rich Munson, and government shouldn’t decide what will be aesthetically pleasing.
“I don’t think that’s our role, I think the marketplace decides that,” Munson said.
Others disagreed. Councilman Dick Denenny said that such a laissez-faire approach is the reason for the visual condition of Sprague Avenue.
Mixed use areas, where housing and commercial development occur side by side, require general design guidelines to ensure continuity in things like parking and how buildings sit on lots, said planner Scott Kuhta.
After further discussion, the policy was left in the plan. The council will continue its deliberations on Comprehensive Plan chapters at another public hearing and upcoming council meetings. The council hopes to give the plan final approval in March.