Land-use funds OK’d for neighborhood groups

Spokane neighborhood groups that want to write detailed land-use plans for their areas can now use federal community development funds to pay for their own planners.

The Spokane City Council on Monday unanimously approved an ordinance allowing neighborhood groups to make use of alternative funding sources to hire experts outside of the city’s planning department.

Budget cuts in the past two years reduced the planning department’s staffing and curtailed the department’s ability to write land-use plans for neighborhood areas.

Neighborhood land-use plans are viewed as critical for city revitalization and the creation of a “new urbanism” pattern in which residences, jobs, shops and public amenities are clustered into arrangements that reduce the need for automobiles and provide for greater foot traffic.

Planning Director Steve Franks said lower-income neighborhoods that qualify for federal community development block grants would be able to allocate portions of their annual grants to neighborhood planning.

Browne’s Addition, Logan and Emerson-Garfield neighborhoods are considered the most likely to take advantage of the option for funding outside the planning department.

Neighborhood plans must involve a broad cross section of residents and business and property owners, and the plans must meet standards established by the city several years ago. But neighborhood groups have been pushing for help to fine-tune land-use plans to encourage pedestrian-friendly development and minimize conflicts between commercial and residential uses, between pass-through traffic and local access traffic and between single-family and multifamily housing.

Councilman Al French, who sponsored the ordinance, said it won unanimous support from the Community Assembly of neighborhood councils. He said neighborhood councils could hire private planners to prepare plans. However, plans must meet previously established citywide standards.