Council discusses housing, design, neighborhood sections of Comp Plan

Four of the six Valley City Council members present at Tuesday’s meeting indicated that the goals of a proposed neighborhood chapter in Spokane Valley’s developing Comprehensive Plan could be accomplished by removing the chapter and adding some of its policies to other sections of the document.

Last summer, the Planning Commission added a section on neighborhoods after homeowners said they wanted more control over how the land around them was developed.

In a close vote, the commission also approved controversial language that would require new development to be of the same scale and design as neighborhoods around it.

That immediately raised red flags for some council members when the chapter went before them this week, with several reasoning that the compatibility requirement would be used by neighbors to shoot down projects based on their density.

“I see this goal being used as a way to restrict development as we approach build out,” which would curb both private property rights and the type of housing built in the city, Councilman Steve Taylor said.

The housing chapter of the plan, Taylor and others said, includes a goal to encourage a diverse range of housing types that parts of the neighborhood chapter would contradict.

Neighborhood topics, like design requirements and creating buffer areas between building types, are covered by the land-use and housing chapters, Councilman Dick Denenny said. Other chapters also could include the policies encouraging neighborhood groups, he said.

Councilman Mike DeVleming concurred.

“I think all of this is being covered,” he said.

But councilmen Gary Schimmels and Bill Gothmann stood firm in their support of a separate section for neighborhoods.

“This satisfies a major concern of your major constituents,” Gothmann said.

While Gothmann was a planning commissioner, much of the public testimony he heard dealt with neighborhoods.

“This was at the top of the list: compatible neighborhoods,” Gothmann said, “are we going to ignore all their inputs?”

After a long, and at times, passionate discussion on the chapter, Mayor Diana Wilhite suggested that the neighborhood goals and policies be given their own subheading in the land-use chapter, which outlines goals for a city center, retail corridors and other specific areas.

The council agreed to look at possibly removing the neighborhood chapter and putting some of its policies in other chapters at its March 7 meeting when a full council is expected.

Councilman Rich Munson is on a cruise and was excused from Tuesday’s meeting, but is expected to return for the March 7 meeting.