Time is now to speak up about growth

Tonight at 6, Spokane Valley’s Planning Commission will hold its only public hearing on proposed development regulations. The Growth Management Act requires continuous and ongoing public participation. Where were these public workshops? Maybe they are sick of the pretense or we’re back to Oz: “If we only had a brain.”

What happened to the rest of planning? While the Spokane Valley City Council, like Marie Antoinette, fed us cake at these meetings, they ignored solving our school problem. The latest school bond, with its atrocious $70 million price tag, failed. The stage is set, and a crisis is coming to a neighborhood near you in the fall of 2008.

Impact fees are an obvious solution to paying for public improvement necessitated by growth, but are too odious to contemplate. Spokane County, Spokane and Spokane Valley hold fast to the concept of indirect concurrency. It requires data but does not mandate solutions. Growth gets the rubber stamp of approval in the face of a growing abyss of future community debt.

State law holds to standard only the transportation impacts of new development, but ignores impacts to schools. In revising its development regulations, Spokane Valley will include the same milquetoast consideration of impacts to schools without legally requiring they be addressed. Politics reign. Hysterical myth makers rationalize building more homes by saying new homes produce tax revenue to pay for the impacts of growth. Hogwash!

Farmland Trust studies across the nation have shown that residential development does not pay the cost of growth. For every dollar a homeowner pays in taxes, another 50 cents must be added from the community to cover the actual cost of growth. Industrial and commercial uses subsidized the tax shortfall to some degree, but not enough to pay for the true impacts of growth. Without a funding mechanism for community schools, etc., property taxes will become out of sight and home ownership increasingly out of reach.

We need direct concurrency. The school funding shortage must be solved or approval of further growth must temporarily stop. But that is seemingly beyond contemplation here, so our local leaders do nothing and D-Day for no more room at the school looms on our immediate horizon. But when it comes to the building industry, that most-favored citizen, leaders can’t act fast enough. The building industry gets first place in sewer capacity while existing streets wait to hook up. Where is the social justice?

Chris Nelson, of the Polytechnic Institute, author of “Paying for Prosperity,” a study that measured economic growth over five years after impact fees were enacted, states “Impact fees grease the wheels of the economy.” In responding to my question about the fairness of impact fees, Nelson said, “Correctly applied fiscal analysis often shows that new development pays its own way when it comes to maintenance and operation of infrastructure but only about one-third to two-thirds of its way in terms of off-site infrastructure. Impact fee methodologies actually account for the share of the new revenues generated by new development that are used to help finance the very facilities also financed in part from impact fees. The result is often that impact fees represent about a quarter to half the cost of new facilities benefiting new development.”

This means that, even after impact fees the community pays up the balance. Spokane Valley’s average annual income is $39,000 for a family of four, an income that leaves little leeway for more taxes. Spokane Valley incorporated with a population of 85,000. Today it’s 87,000.

Only an ordinance requiring direct concurrency will cause the alligator tears and political hand-wringing to stop and a solution enacted. The Home Builder’s Association, Realtors Association and the rest of the power elite are welcome to solve the problem, but it will not happen until it’s legally mandated.

The time for action is now. Protest the lack of public participation. Demand more time and workshop meetings to make this a meaningful process, not rule by a few. The draft was only made available last Wednesday. The City Council will make a decision and adopt the Complete Uniform Development Code (Titles 17-24) by ordinance on March 27 unless urged to take the time to build a healthy community. It will take all of us. Remember these regulations will directly affect your property and lives.

Please go to www.spokanevalley.org to read these regulations. Direct questions to Deanna Griffith, Community Development, at 688-0050, or by e-mail at dgriffith@spokanevalley.org