City, county traffic plan in works

Spokane Valley and Spokane County are on the verge of a breakthrough land-use planning agreement.

The traffic-oriented deal is expected to open a door for further cooperation.

Mayor Rich Munson and Spokane County Commissioner Mark Richard say they hope to have an agreement for the unincorporated Turtle Creek area, southeast of Spokane Valley, in place by the end of the month.

“I’m going to do everything in my power to do that,” Richard said. “If we don’t achieve that, we’ll be very close to that time frame.”

City officials are eager to gain a voice in county decisions about subdivisions that affect traffic inside the city. The proposed interlocal agreement would require consideration of issues such as Sprague Avenue’s overloaded intersections with University and Barker roads.

“I couldn’t be more pleased,” Munson said. “Well, I’ll be more pleased when we get it done.”

Munson had expressed frustration about lack of progress in negotiations, but city and county officials found common ground at a meeting late last month.

Now, Richard said, “Our legal teams are working back and forth to try to craft and clarify what it was that we meant and said in that meeting.”

Richard led the county negotiators, and needs the support of at least one other commissioner to implement the agreement.

Munson believes a key to the tentative agreement was a strategy for giving county commissioners a formal voice in city decisions that may affect traffic in unincorporated areas.

The deal calls for “triggers” based on regional traffic data instead of a fixed boundary to determine when city officials must consult their county counterparts.

“Once we were able to get to that point, it just kind of fell into place,” Munson said.

The “real key,” he said, was a mutual realization that both sides were “serious about getting this resolved.”

It was a matter of “ironing out some misconceptions that each of us held in terms of what was holding the process up and what we were asking of each other,” Richard said.

As soon as the compact is signed, its “guiding principles” will be implemented, but officials will flesh it out while working on a broader agreement, Richard said.

The Turtle Creek agreement focuses on traffic issues, but city and county officials want a “joint planning agreement” to guide development in other “urban growth areas” designated under the state Growth Management Act.

The broader agreement will deal with issues such as establishing a coordinated review process and adopting consistent development regulations and construction infrastructure standards. The objective is to ensure a smooth transition when urban growth areas are annexed.

Spokane County and the cities of Spokane, Spokane Valley, Liberty Lake, Millwood and Airway Heights are working on joint planning agreements with the help of a $150,000 state grant administered by the Washington State Boundary Review Board for Spokane County.

Richard said the county now has interim agreements with Spokane on 11 of 12 urban growth areas, and expects to complete a joint planning agreement with the city by the end of the year. Work with Spokane Valley isn’t as far along, but should be completed by the middle of next year, Richard said.

A joint planning agreement with Spokane Valley could apply to several other urban growth areas north and south of the city, but the process may be a bit more complicated than with the city of Spokane.

While urban growth areas around Spokane are earmarked for annexation, those around Spokane Valley are designated for control by the county government. Spokane Valley hadn’t incorporated when the areas were established as part of the county comprehensive land use plan.

Transferring the county UGAs to Spokane Valley would have to be done as an amendment to the county comprehensive plan.

Although state law requires the plan to be updated every 10 years, county policy calls for a review every five years. The review was supposed to have been done more than a year ago.

“If we get this done by the end of the year, we’re two years behind,” Richard said.

County commissioners have been frustrated by the delay, but Richard said planners in Spokane, Spokane Valley and Liberty Lake have suggested “this time frame is too aggressive and not possible.” And he’s starting to see it their way.

City and county officials are developing a more collaborative approach, with shared environmental reviews and regional capital facilities planning, Richard said.

“We recognize that takes more time, but in the end I think we’re going to have a better product that the community can be proud of, that actually is a comprehensive regional plan,” he said.

In Richard’s view, that could include transferring county growth areas to Spokane Valley as long as the city satisfies state requirements to demonstrate a need to grow and ability to provide infrastructure and services.

“I can’t say that my cohorts share or don’t share that view,” he said.