Manito conflict

Mary C. Clark, the owner of the Manito Ship & Copy shop near 29th and Grand, likes living in an urban setting. Before moving to Spokane, she spent 15 years living in the Pike Place Market district in Seattle. She is siding with a group of South Side residents who want to allow greater mixed-use development in the Manito shopping area. “We need to not be afraid of growth,” Clark said. But a neighborhood effort to write a new zoning plan for the Manito shopping area is running into opposition.

Residents living north of 29th Avenue are fighting a proposal to allow new development of apartments, offices and other business along Grand Boulevard for several blocks north of 29th Avenue and along the north side of 29th Avenue west of Garfield Street. For now, they may have won an effort to limit apartments, offices and shops north of 29th Avenue.

“I think we want to protect this beautiful, close-in neighborhood,” said Marilyn Akerhielm, a resident of the Rockwood Neighborhood.

Akerhielm pointed out that Rockwood has been designated as a national historic district with its fine older homes and long legacy of good street design. She said allowing greater density of development would harm the character of the single-family neighborhood.

She apparently has plenty of residents who agree with her. They have submitted two petitions to City Hall seeking to stop encroachment by new development north of 29th Avenue.

Included in the controversy is a proposal to put an eight-unit apartment house on a vacant parcel at the northwest corner of 29th Avenue and Garfield Street.

Akerhielm has called on the developer to donate the property for park use.

The neighborhood controversy arose in the midst of a neighborhood-inspired effort to write a new land-use plan for the Manito shopping area and the land adjacent to it. The planning work is being done as a joint effort among the Rockwood, Comstock and Manito/Cannon Hill neighborhoods.

Councilman Al French has been working with neighborhood leaders to come up with changes that could bring new life to the older business area.

He said the Manito center “suffers from severe functional obsolescence” with its large open parking lot and lack of pedestrian amenities.

A new neighborhood plan could allow for a mix of different uses, including apartments and condos in the upper stories of commercial and office developments. The plan could require wider sidewalks with setbacks from streets, more landscaping, small park spaces and less parking area.

New housing for older residents could be part of the mix.

The idea is to create land-use and zoning rules that would lead to a neighborhood-friendly environment, a place where people could live, shop and work.

This so-called mixed-use development is a fundamental element of something called “new urbanism.”

The city has opened the door to mixed-use development through its “centers and corridors” land-use rules, but each neighborhood is required to develop the changes.

French said that by allowing for more intense use of the land, developers could make projects profitable while residents would get a more vibrant neighborhood center. The city would benefit from a stronger tax base, he said.

Clark’s mail and copy business is the kind of shop that is well suited to a neighborhood center.

She said Spokane residents should embrace greater density of uses as a way to reduce reliance on the automobile.’

“None of this is really that radical,” she said.

But the fact that residents are arguing over neighborhood land use, particularly in the area north of 29th Avenue, is a symptom of a lack of City Hall leadership on planning issues, Clark said.

“What we’ve lacked is leadership,” she said. “That’s the problem.”

She said it’s unfair for city officials to allow neighborhoods to engage in battles with one another.

But Mayor Jim West, during budget cuts last year, reduced the city’s staff work on neighborhood planning. Now, West said he wants residents to work out their own plans and then come to City Hall for assistance.

“You can’t ask these people to continue to duke it out,” Clark said. “That’s cruel.”

Dallas Hawkins, a leader in the Rockwood Neighborhood, said the Manito shopping area “is in some fairly serious need of revitalization. It’s not attractive. It’s kind of a hodgepodge.”

A new plan for the shopping center may be blocked because of opposition to higher-intensity uses north of 29th Avenue, he said.

“Really, all they want to do is prevent growth where they see it shouldn’t go, and that is north of 29th,” Hawkins said. “They call it commercial creep.”

But Hawkins views the intersection of 29th and Grand as the arterial axis of the neighborhood center, so it makes sense to allow balanced development on the south side of 29th Avenue with more development on the north side.

It’s not clear when or if a proposal will be submitted to City Hall for eventual consideration by the City Council.

Council President Dennis Hession, who lives just north of 29th Avenue, said he may be facing a conflict of interest on zoning issues involving the residential area north of 29th Avenue.

Hawkins said, “We are not that progressive yet, but we’re working on it.”