Council postpones couplet vote

The Spokane Valley City Council punted Tuesday on an unpopular proposal to convert part of the Sprague-Appleway couplet to two-way traffic.

Council members agreed to postpone action on the Sprague-Appleway Revitalization Plan’s proposal to restore two-way traffic on Sprague Avenue and introduce it on Appleway Boulevard.

In several public hearings, residents have expressed overwhelming opposition to eliminating one-way traffic in the couplet.

The council has been working its way through the plan section by section in weekly discussions. The section under consideration Tuesday called for one-way traffic in the Auto Row area between the Sprague interchange of Interstate 90 and Argonne Road.

Councilman Bill Gothmann’s suggestion to reserve the issue for a later discussion had unanimous support, with Mayor Rich Munson and Councilman Steve Taylor absent.

Also unanimously, the council adopted a staff recommendation to toss out part of the plan that would have prohibited anyone but new-car dealers from opening a used-car lot in Auto Row.

Tuesday’s deliberations revealed some other misgivings about the plan.

Councilwoman Diana Wilhite questioned the philosophy of trying to force desirable businesses into a proposed city center district by preventing them from opening elsewhere in the Sprague-Appleway corridor.

“I have a little bit of a problem with that,” Wilhite said. “I’m a free-market girl. I believe, if we build it, they will come.”

Deputy Mayor Dick Denenny said he also has struggled with that issue, but thinks “you’ve got to do something” because establishing a city center is the plan’s highest priority.

The council took no action on that issue, but adopted Wilhite’s suggestion to eliminate language calling for signs to be “limited” in Auto Row. Some car dealers and other franchisees have contractual obligations to use certain kinds of signs, Wilhite said.

She also expressed misgivings about the plan’s encouragement of residential development along the north side of Appleway Boulevard.

Senior planner Scott Kuhta, the revitalization plan manager, said residential development currently is unlikely on the north side of Appleway because of existing commercial uses. However, he said the market has shown a preference for residential development on the south side of the boulevard.

A light rail line or other mass transit improvements could increase demand for residential development along Appleway, Denenny said.

Councilwoman Rose Dempsey said she thought the plan’s call for downtown-style, “clumped-together” buildings would be “counterproductive” in a city with as much room as Spokane Valley.

“I felt from the beginning that this was too much control and didn’t address our Western spaciousness,” Dempsey said.

But Gothmann said a similar approach has worked well in the Central Oregon tourist town of Sisters.

“The intent of this is to make it extremely walkable,” Denenny said.

Shoulder-to-shoulder buildings would create “the ambience of an urban village,” Denenny said. Pedestrians could shelter under awnings in the rain and enjoy public open spaces, he said.

The council took no action on that issue.