Letters
What type of growth does council choose?
I presented a petition at the Liberty Lake City Council (March 6) which contained the signatures of 792 community residents opposed to moving the Urban Growth Area. It’s a significant number – 31 percent of the people who voted in the last sewer district election.
Later in the meeting, the council began discussion of the UGA boundary expansion by giving lip service to public opinion, then stating that not planning is not an option. Keeping the UGA boundary does represent planning – planning for smart growth.
Alternative 1 is billed in the Planning Department documents as no action, which is a misnomer. This is the action that will be the most effective use of the current infrastructure. This action will protect our open spaces and views. It is the action that is supported by an overwhelming majority of the community.
What will this action mean? Existing neighborhoods and developments already approved will not be affected. It will mean zoning changes to the mixed use lands to require a residential component. It will mean a change in the net density of the city from the current 4.5 units per acre to 6 per acre. (The recently approved Liberty Lake Villages has a net density of almost 10 units per acre)
It will mean economically vital new developments that are pedestrian friendly and more accessible for public transportation. It will mean more choices of different types of residential units, making more affordable housing available. It will not give us more gated exclusive residential developments, which do not sustain themselves (as Mayor Pro Tem Patrick Jenkins acknowledged).
If the City Council doesn’t choose the action that represents smart growth, what kind of growth is it advocating?
Kathi Shirley
Liberty Lake
‘Valley people’ like one-way couplet
Putting Sprague and Appleway back to two-ways is not a great idea. My husband and I really enjoy being able to drive on either of the one-way streets and be able to get somewhere in a timely manner.
I believe that if it gets put back to a two-way, then there will obviously be much more congestion. That may be the city’s plan to increase sales along those streets, but we will just use the freeway instead. We don’t choose to live in “The Valley” to be subjected to traffic congestion. It seems that living in a city of our size doesn’t make us free from “The Man” trying to get us to buy “stuff” we don’t need, like burgers and furniture.
I know where I shop, but if you make it more difficult to get somewhere then chances are that I will stop spending my hard-earned dollars there. I think the Sprague/Appleway one-way has grown into a great idea. I was unsure of it at first, but now I love it, and I know I’m only one in thousands of us “Valley people.”
Lacey Heinz
Spokane Valley
Plan could bring back main street
Historically, Sprague Avenue has been the main street for the Spokane Valley.
It provided residents many different shopping experiences, services and entertainment. The limited convenience for less than the 10 percent through traffic that use it to go to Spokane has caused tremendous difficulty to the historical uses along Sprague Avenue.
Small businesses that were the life blood of the community started to fail, citizens were forced to travel to shop downtown Spokane or to the extreme edges of the Valley to the new out-of-town owned shopping centers. The local entrepreneurs and Valley citizens were the losers. The community began to see property value and appearance fail.
When small businesses fail, the life savings of many for which they worked so hard to acquire, were depressed if not ruined. The making of one-way Sprague was a huge boondoggle gone wrong. Thank goodness for the energy of the Spokane Valley Business Association, the thoughtfulness of the new city’s council to investigate solutions and the professional report the council received.
One can only hope changes can be made to repair the damage done and our city’s main street can come back better than ever with trees, sidewalks and parking. The plan presented to the City Council is a grand one. It will focus the center and bring the Valley together and in the process bring back our main street.
Terry Lynch
President, Spokane Valley Business Association