Valley comprehensive plan taking shape
The city of Spokane Valley has been developing its comprehensive land-use plan much like a cook follows a recipe.
Staffers in its community development department have contributed expertise, while calling on citizens to share ideas for how they want the city to look 20 years from now. The ingredients have been mixed together into a draft meant to start discussions, with a finalized plan expected later this year.
But some City Council members choked on their soup Tuesday night after reading the discussion document. They balked at how some of the proposed policies were presented and at some of the ideas for change – some of which came directly from citizens.
“A comprehensive plan is a broad, broad view,” said Councilman Dick Denenny on Wednesday, who felt the document was too detailed. “It’s almost like taking a painting, a canvas. Here are the colors we’re going to work with. We don’t know what’s going to go on it yet. From there, you get into the specifics and how you will address those.”
The Washington state Growth Management Act requires communities to write comprehensive plans to guide growth. Spokane Valley adopted Spokane County’s comp plan when it incorporated in 2003.
The staff is aiming to finish the draft of the city’s first unique comp plan this spring. After that, the public will have a month or two to review it before the Planning Commission holds public hearings. The commission will then forward a recommended plan to the council, which also must hear citizen input.
Since last spring, the community development department has held nine meetings in which citizens brainstormed specific ideas for the plan. The staff put some of the suggestions into the document that the council chewed on Tuesday.
Denenny took issue with a goal in the draft chapter on housing to “reduce the adverse impacts of freight and air traffic movements through requirements for noise attenuation adjacent to residential land uses” – a concern that citizens brought forth last year, the city’s staff said.
Denenny said the plan goes too far by offering a solution to the problem rather than making a broad statement about the problem and then addressing it through zoning and ordinances.
Deputy Mayor Richard Munson said including development standards in the draft chapter on the natural environment “raised red flags” about “restrictions and the inability to develop because of environmental concerns.”
And Councilman Steve Taylor questioned whether one statement, that the city will continue to monitor and research the effects of electromagnetic fields and microwaves, really came from citizens.
When Mayor Diana Wilhite said she could see where the public might raise that concern, councilman Mike DeVleming jumped in to say, “I’d like to hear the staff’s answer to that question.”
Senior Planner Scott Kuhta later verified that that did indeed come from the people.
Kuhta and Community Development Director Marina Sukup reiterated that the document was a discussion draft, meant to be a starting point. Kuhta warned, though, that “if the council starts weighing in on the process and starts dictating policy before the community weighs in then that’s a top-down (process).”
In fact, the Growth Management Act, which requires “early and continuous public involvement” in the process, intends growth plans to be driven by the public.
Denenny said Wednesday he agreed that the process should start with the people. And De-Vleming told the staff he worried that the wording of the draft gives the public the impression that the work is already done.
“It goes back to reputation that government has made up its mind,” he said. “Somebody who hasn’t followed what we’ve been doing is going to see that and say, ‘The council has made up its mind.’ “
Sukup welcomed the council feedback.
“We want to put the issues out there,” she said Tuesday. “We know you may not like some of them. That’s OK. We want to get a response from you on where we’re off base and where we’re on track.”
To that, Wilhite replied:
“You got our attention.”