Valley rethinks development on arterials

As Spokane Valley rewrites development policies it inherited from the county and plans to redevelop Sprague Avenue, the city also is taking a more proactive approach to figuring out what should be built on arterials running through residential neighborhoods.

Where roads are widened and traffic has increased, market pressures traditionally drive property owners to replace their houses with storefronts and offices. Unlike in years past, though, Spokane Valley’s long-term plans call for a clearer line where the houses stop and commerce begins.

Change isn’t necessarily a bad thing, said David Arnold, who lived next door to a new office building surrounded by residential lots on McDonald Road north of Sprague.

“The best thing that happened to the south side of my property was the dentist’s office moving in,” he said.

Drivers in four lanes pass by about 7,000 times daily, according to the 2004 Spokane County Traffic Count Atlas. In the mid-1990s a developer cited the road’s ability to handle more traffic before an apartment complex joined the street once dominated by single-family houses on large lots. Across the street, the large office building was proposed on the site of a dilapidated house in 2001.

The workers leave at 5 p.m., and Arnold said the offices have changed the neighborhood less than the apartments, which Spokane County allows under the same UR-22 zoning.

He moved out when the city incorporated and sold the property last year. It was granted office status in the city’s first comprehensive plan and is now in the process of a zone change. The funky, steep-roofed cottage on the site will be moved to another neighborhood, he said.

According to the city’s long-term plans, though, the creeping line between offices and existing houses will stop there.

The comprehensive plan adopted this year attempts to cluster retail and other business uses around intersections rather than along the edge of busy streets where they traditionally crop up.

“Now that we have our vision, it’s not going to change significantly for most of the city,” said senior planner Scott Kuhta.

Landowners wanting to modify how their property is used have until Dec. 29 to request that they be included in the first round of amendments to the comprehensive plan.

While much of the city’s early planning reacted to zoning and road improvements inherited by the county, city leaders for the first time will be able to consider each request in the context of an existing plan for Spokane Valley.

On Evergreen north of Sprague, for example, the county allowed offices on the west side of the street after it was widened in 2000. A large office building was approved on the other side of the street a few years later. The city now envisions offices along much of that stretch, with the exception of some new commercial development at Broadway intersection.

“This is going to be another Sullivan eventually,” said Helen Haden, who has lived there long enough to see the road change from dirt, to two-lane residential, to five-lane arterial.

The office complex next to her three acres on Evergreen hasn’t bothered her any, she said on Tuesday, although the traffic in general seems to have scared off the trick-or-treaters in recent years.

North of I-90, Barker Road has been improved and there are plans to expand the bridge over the river. The fast pace of building in the neighborhood has brought both people and traffic, but the city will keep the zoning along much of Barker residential, with the exception of a couple lots where it intersects Boone.

On the Argonne-Mullan couplet, the council deliberated at length about how far commercial and office zoning should be extended. On the map now, offices are allowed one to three lots outward from the road, and at Mission the commercial designation extends outward slightly beyond where businesses exist now.

Any further changes will be up to the City Council, which is also busy rewriting the regulations that control how each type of development takes place.

Councilman Steve Taylor said he’d like to see the city work toward the current plan before changing anything drastically.

“Let’s try to get this implemented first in terms of what our long-term vision is,” he said.