Development can go own way, council says

New development won’t have to match the scale and design of the neighborhoods around it under Spokane Valley’s new land use plan, the City Council decided at a meeting Thursday night.

“Each of these areas will have different types of challenges that I think we will have to come up with unique answers to,” Councilman Rich Munson said.

After a barrage of public comment from people unhappy with the way their neighborhoods were developing, the Planning Commission added a chapter on preserving neighborhood character to the new comprehensive plan last summer.

Under the council’s revisions to the chapter, residents eventually will be able to organize and draw up plans for their neighborhoods to submit to the City Council.

But a majority on the council said the city’s development regulations and policies in other parts of the plan go far enough to keep new construction in line with what’s around it.

Also, council members said the design requirement contradicts the city’s goal to encourage a wide range of housing types.

“We need diversity in our neighborhoods and not to have little enclaves here and there,” Councilman Steve Taylor said.

In a 6-1 motion, the council deleted a goal to “require new development to be of a scale and design that is compatible with existing neighborhood character,” replacing it instead with broader language from the land use chapter.

Councilman Bill Gothmann cast the dissenting vote. “You have not protected existing residential neighborhoods,” he said.

During a public hearing at the meeting, several people spoke in support of requirements that would limit things like the housing density in existing neighborhoods.

“I didn’t see any comments from the community being referenced in anything,” Mary Pollard said after the council made its revisions.

Pollard sat on a committee that helped draft the chapter.