Together citizens and elected officials developed Spokane County’s Comprehensive Plan. This plan is designed to guide the county’s land- use decisions — to ensure that Spokane residents enjoy a high quality of life surrounded with open spaces, provided with clean drinking water and with a transportation system that works. Unfortunately, the Spokane County Board of Commissioners has long been disregarding the Comprehensive Plan and the commitments they made to the people they represent.

Spokane County has approved a number of recent Urban Growth Area expansions that do not comply with the state Growth Management Act or the county’s own Comprehensive Plan. Some of those actions have been appealed successfully to the Growth Management Hearings Board. In other cases, appointed officials have simply disregarded the rules and approved projects that do not comply with the Comprehensive Plan or other laws. Due to vesting loopholes in the law, however, developers are often able to proceed with these projects, even if they are later found to be illegal.

The law works only when it is followed. The effectiveness of Spokane County’s Comprehensive Plan is dependent on the elected officials who implement it. The county’s ongoing pattern of making zoning and land-use decisions at odds with the plan is very troubling – and it means the county’s plan for our future is unfairly and unevenly applied.

The plan’s rules about future development were crafted with public input, taking into account the housing and employment needs of the region, availability of urban services and transportation needs. Failing to follow the plan has had and will have painful long-term consequences. Sprawling, ill-designed growth is expensive to provide with public services, increasing costs to taxpayers in addition to reducing the quality of life of Spokane’s residents.

The Comprehensive Plan takes account of Spokane’s inevitable growth and attempts to manage it in a sustainable, fair fashion. Haphazard changes and failures to follow the plan in individual land-use decisions can be worse than having no plan at all, because capital facilities like water, sewer and transportation, plus fire and police protection, are all designed in accordance with the plan. Changing the plan midstream can leave neighborhoods or the whole region with inadequate public services like police or fire protection.

Not following the plan is also unfair to individuals. Land and business owners and developers rely on the comprehensive plan when deciding which properties they should purchase and how much they should pay for them. Arbitrarily changing the rules for some means that they end up with an unfair advantage over the rest of us. Everyone should play by the same rules.

The Comprehensive Plan is a living document, and can and should be changed to reflect new circumstances. But it cannot and should not be changed arbitrarily. Arbitrary changes may have adverse, unexpected consequences. For instance, increasing housing density in a neighborhood not slated for transportation or other infrastructure improvements will mean that the town’s residents end up stuck in unplanned traffic. There are legally required procedures for changing the Comprehensive Plan, including public hearings, to ensure that each alteration is carefully considered.

The bottom line is that our elected officials cannot disregard the law, and they should not disregard the will of the people. The Comprehensive Plan was developed with input from citizens about the type of city they want to live in. The rules need to be applied equally to everyone.

Spokane County has a comprehensive plan it should be proud of. All that remains is to ensure that Spokane’s officials follow it. Citizen groups have been saying this for years. Now, the Neighborhood Alliance of Spokane and an affected resident have filed a petition to force the county to correct a zone change granted without adequate public input.

The county should take notice. Citizens are paying attention and will hold elected officials accountable for making sure the comprehensive plan matches up with realities on the ground.