Council modifies SARP to benefit Auto Row

The Spokane Valley City Council set about stripping requirements from the Sprague/Appleway Revitalization Plan on Tuesday as it told city staff what provisions of the Gateway Commercial Avenue and Gateway Commercial Center zone they wanted to change.

The two areas encompass what is known as Auto Row on Sprague. Associate planner Lori Barlow said the two zones were constructed to limit business to those that complement auto sales. Buildings were required to be set close to the street and have a certain percentage of their building along Sprague to promote pedestrian use. But council members took aim at all those premises Tuesday night and shot them down.

Buildings in the GCA zone are required to be between zero and 30 feet of Sprague and in the GCC zone they must be between zero and 10 feet back. The requirements don’t apply on any other street. Barlow said the city received an e-mail from Auto Row representatives requesting that be changed to a maximum setback of 100 feet.

“I support the auto dealers 100 percent,” said Councilman Dean Grafos. He took it step further and suggested the maximum setback be changed to 250 feet. He said the 100-foot maximum would still be too restrictive for a dealer selling RVs or large trucks.

“I’d like to just say no maximum setbacks,” said Councilwoman Brenda Grassel. “We don’t have that regulation on any other roads.”

Councilman Bill Gothmann said he could see why the auto dealers would want a 100-foot setback, but thought a 250-foot limit was too extreme. “Do you want, for example, all your restaurants to have a 250-foot setback?”

Mayor Tom Towey said he was in favor of eliminating the setback requirement altogether. “If we do no setbacks, they can do whatever they want,” Towey said. “We don’t have to read their minds.”

There was some discussion on whether an elimination of the setbacks would be a relatively quick code amendment or a Comprehensive Plan amendment that would take a year to complete. City Attorney Mike Connelly said the council needed to be specific in its request for changes because there wasn’t time to research multiple options before next week’s meeting. “We can’t make that analysis on the fly,” he said.

The consensus was to increase the setback limit and then perhaps consider eliminating the requirement entirely as part of the annual Comprehensive Plan amendments.

Several of the complaints received from property owners included the numbers, types and sizes of signs allowed. “The intent was to minimize sign clutter,” Barlow said.

The conversation quickly turned to whether or not the council should reconsider the entire city sign code, not just the section included in SARP. “I hear a lot from constituents that we have a very restrictive sign ordinance,” Grassel said.

Connelly advised against changing the sign rules just in the SARP area because that would set up different standards for businesses based on their location. “I wouldn’t loosen it up beyond what is allowed in the rest of the city,” he said.

Towey said he would like to look at the sign ordinance as a whole at a later date. “I don’t think we ought to change this right now,” he said.

The city has also received complaints from owners about uses that used to be allowed on their property that are no longer allowed. For example, the GCA zone does not allow full-service restaurants. The e-mail from the representatives of Auto Row indicated they would like to have full-service restaurants, specialty retail stores and some office uses allowed in the zone, Barlow said. The council can decide to add some uses to the zone, but they must be complementary to auto sales. Other uses would have to be added through a more lengthy Comprehensive Plan amendment process.

“I’d be for adding the complementary uses,” Towey said.

Grassel said government shouldn’t get involved in the free-market system and that the market should determine what businesses go in that area, not zoning. “I don’t think we should dictate any particular uses,” she said.

The discussion also touched on nonconforming uses and the requirement that any nonconforming building that is destroyed more than 80 percent by a fire or other disaster cannot be rebuilt the way it was but must meet the new requirements. The 80 percent threshold is citywide, not just in the SARP area.

Several council members indicated that they would like to eliminate that requirement or bump it up to a 100 percent threshold, meaning that any nonconforming building could be rebuilt exactly the way it was. Doing something that extreme would require a Comprehensive Plan amendment, Connelly said. He also pointed out that the goal is to eventually phase out all nonconforming uses. “If you do that, you are never going to get rid of nonconforming uses,” he said.

He recommended waiting until the council has reviewed all the SARP zones before tinkering with nonconforming uses. “We’re just starting,” he said. “You may change your opinion when you get to Mixed Use.”

City staff will prepare motions to send all the issues the council discussed to the Planning Commission for reconsideration. The motions will be voted on next week. The issues will go through a public hearing process before being returned to the council for a final vote.

In other business, Grafos said he would like to see the one-way versus two-way discussion for Sprague and Appleway put to a public vote. “This issue should be put on the general election ballot in November,” he said. “Settle this once and for all.”

Adding the issue to the ballot would cost the city $12,000. Acting City Manager Mike Jackson said staff would research the procedure and bring information back to the council at a later date.