Generally positive reception

Developers can be a tough audience for municipal planners, but Spokane Valley’s Scott Kuhta was unscathed Friday when he presented the city’s proposed Sprague-Appleway corridor plan to some 45 builders, architects and real estate agents.

Kuhta didn’t catch a lot of bouquets, but he wasn’t dodging rotten tomatoes, either.

Skeptical questions were tempered with admiration for the concept of enlivening Sprague Avenue with a series of distinct districts.

“Ambitious,” “complicated,” “expensive,” said people who still liked the idea.

Kuhta, a senior planner who’s managing the makeover plan, said buildings would be required to have some ornamentation and “active open space” such as small courtyards for offices and balconies for apartments.

“We don’t want the place to look like California,” he said.

But commercial real estate broker David Paperd thought some of the examples Kuhta showed looked like San Francisco.

“Kind of nice, but complicated,” Paperd said.

Yes, he likes the plan, Paperd said in an interview. “I think it’s lovely. We need to do more of this kind of thing.”

But the corridor needs a light rail line, he said. The plan calls for a mixed-use pathway on Appleway Boulevard that could be converted to light rail or other rapid-transit use.

The plan looks “kind of expensive,” architect Gary Bernardo said, wondering whether city officials are considering development fees to cover its implementation costs.

Kuhta said there are “a lot of unknowns on funding,” but he thinks grant-giving agencies will like the plan.

“It’s an ambitious plan, but I think there will be a great benefit to the community at large as well as the development community,” Bernardo said after the early morning meeting broke up. “It’s a pretty exciting thing, actually.”

The city’s willingness to be flexible in the early years of implementation will be vital to the plan’s success, Bernardo cautioned.

Developer Tom Hamilton worried about a requirement for existing buildings to meet the new code if they are enlarged 15 percent or more, or if renovations exceed 15 percent of their value.

“It doesn’t take much to get 15 percent of the value of a building,” and owners shouldn’t be discouraged from improving their buildings, Hamilton said.

The plan calls for “form-based” zoning that focuses on the appearance of buildings. Kuhta said it would attempt to prevent incongruous projects that stick out like the “Star Wars” structure between two Victorian houses in a slide he showed.

“What if everybody wants the Star Wars look?” developer John Miller asked. “Some of us don’t like the 1900s.”

He wanted to know who decides the character of the districts the plan envisions, but Kuhta turned the tables by asking his audience to study the plan and let him know whether they think it matches Spokane Valley tastes.

Kuhta said the plan doesn’t lock projects into a certain architectural style. If someone wants to do something not described in the plan, “all you have to do is tell us how it meets the intent of the code,” he said.

Two more meetings, aimed at the general public, are scheduled Wednesday from 6 to 9 p.m. and Feb. 14 from 4 to 6 p.m., both at City Hall.

Also, Kuhta said, a Feb. 19 meeting is being arranged to talk specifically about restoration of two-way traffic on Sprague and Appleway and other traffic issues.