City seeking growth input

The Spokane city planning department is hosting a series of open houses during the next two weeks to gather public input on a series of expected changes in laws that guide both development and environmental protection inside the city limits.

Public participation is required by the state as a basis for local planning laws, so the open houses that begin Monday are seen as essential to establishing legitimacy for Spokane’s urban planning code.

The meetings will focus on a state-required, five-year update of the city’s comprehensive land-use plan under the state’s Growth Management Act.

“A big part of GMA is early and ongoing citizen participation,” said city planner Ken Pelton.

Neighborhood council members, anti-growth activists, environmentalists, property owners, business interests, developers and academics are expected to attend.

Spokane adopted its first growth management law in 2001 after five years of work documenting public comment. The “comp plan” guides higher-

intensity developments into a series of commercial centers and transportation corridors. Hundreds of people participated in the effort, in part through an organization called Spokane Horizons.

The law is supposed to manage population growth for the next 20 years by ensuring that city services are adequate to meet the growth as it occurs. Traffic congestion – the most apparent problem that comes with uncontrolled growth – has become a repeated complaint from residents in many city neighborhoods.

Neighborhood activists in northwest Spokane have argued that the problem is so severe that a building moratorium is needed until street construction catches up with a major housing boom there.

The city’s 2001 comp plan also has brought redevelopment work in places like the South Perry Street business district, Holy Family Hospital employment district, Hillyard commercial area and downtown Spokane.

Spokane County officials have said they expect the city to grow by 70,000 residents over the next 20 years, even though the current pace of city growth would only add 20,000 residents in that time without any annexations.

The city’s updated comprehensive land-use plan must find ways to accommodate the additional population and to meet the growth with adequate services.

Annexation of unincorporated land into the city is one way the city can absorb more population.

Other ways include more downtown housing projects, including condominiums; development of vacant spaces in residential areas; redevelopment of existing single-family parcels with smaller lots; and multi-family projects in urban centers and corridors.

Also as part of the open houses, city officials will gather input on updates of the city’s shoreline master program and development regulations in critical areas such as wetlands, steep hillsides and aquifer recharge areas.

The shoreline master program could include new development regulations, including height restrictions, on projects adjacent to the Spokane River.