City of Spokane Valley Shoreline Master Program

_{Read the Spokesman Review coverage of the April 12th hearing here.
Read the most recent Futurewise comment letters here and here.}

The City of Spokane Valley inherited Spokane County's 1974 Shoreline Master Plan when it incorporated in 2003. Last year the City convened a group of stakeholders to create a new plan that brings the city up to current state standards and directs the protection and enhancement of the shoreline environment. After an extensive inventory of the shorelines staff invited Futurewise and a diverse group of stakeholders to participate in the drafting of goals and policies. What seemed like a fair and consensus based process was derailed when Centennial Properties (owned by the same company that owns controlling interest in the Spokesman Review) submitted a counter proposal to the City Council after the stakeholders' group had completed its draft goals and policies document despite being a member of the group and agreeing to participate in the process.

At the  April 12th Planning Commission hearing Futurewise testified in favor of Shoreline Advisory Group's draft and called for adherence to the Shoreline Management Act and fair process. We will continue to advocate for stronger shoreline protections throughout the process, but we need your help, especially if you live in the Spokane Valley. Stay tuned for future opportunities to demand protection of  the Spokane River and Shelly Lake.

You can read our comment letters here and here. You can also look at the draft and Centennial Property's comments here.

What’s Going on with the Spokane County Urban Growth Area Update?

Read the most recent Futurewise comment letter here. (Our 7th time commenting, but who's counting?)

Boy, do we have our work cut out for us. Spokane County is undergoing a mandatory review of its Urban Growth Area (UGA), and they’ve come up with some interesting conclusions. As you know, a UGA is a boundary, usually surrounding cities, identifying where the cities in the county plan to grow in the future. The whole point of urban growth areas is two-fold: 1) reduce infrastructure costs by concentrating growth inside cities and 2) prevent sprawl from chewing up the rural landscape, working farms and forestland. But the county is playing footsie with the boundaries, retracting a bit here, adding a lot more there. Which could have the net result of putting taxpayer-subsidized sprawl in places no one agreed development should go.

According to the County's own experts the existing UGA is larger than it needs to be to accommodate projected future growth. However none of the alternatives the commissioner are considering contract the size of the UGA. Luckily the City of Spokane Plan Commission and the multi jurisdictional  technical committee (PTAC) have created an new alternative that recommends a modest contraction that makes more sense. (See the memo here). But, judging by their responses to the PTAC and Futurewise at the last Growth Management Steering Committee of Elected Officials hearing, the Commissioners are not interested in right-sizing the UGA. In fact, the County Commissioner's created their own proposal that seeks to expand it...a lot!

No one in their right mind wants to pay more taxes to unnecessarily extend sewer, water, electricity lines, build more schools, roads and police/fire protection for newly-developed areas when we have plenty of room within the UGA. Keep in touch as we work to stop this folly.

How the UGA works:

Here in Spokane, our collective urban growth area equals 89 square miles. That’s enough space, according to the county’s Land Quantity Analysis, to accommodate 117,800 new people by 2031.  Which is convenient, because the county says we’re expecting a shade under that – 113,541.

But something has happened since that Land Quantity Analysis was produced – the County now claims that they don’t have enough space for the new people. Huh? How did they come up with that? They didn't. The county tallied up all the vacant land, then estimated the buildout under current zoning. Then deducted  20% assuming it would would go to capital facilities like roads, parks, and fire stations. Then they deducted a whopping 30% more because they assumed that it would remain undeveloped (it must have been a gut feeling because the  Growth Management Hearings Board supports research that suggests 25% is a more reasonable assumption).  So the remaining 50% of vacant land in the county is still larger than it needs to be to absorb the 113,541 people we are expecting in the next 20 years. Yet somehow, the Commissioners are still looking for ways to add more land.

Not only that, but they’re planning to funnel 20% of future growth directly into rural lands. Is engineering an incursion of an additional 28,385 people into the rural landscape good for Spokane’s future? The county itself estimates a surplus of 7,915 acres of commercial and industrial designated land. Which means that they expect almost 8,000 ares of commercial land will sit empty while the rural landscape gets converted to suburban sprawl. This is bad for our economy.

To put this in perspective, our existing UGA is 89 square miles. That's over 2.5 times larger than the City of Paris, France. And Paris we ain't. Their population, at 2.2 million is almost 5 times the population of Spokane County. Using the county's own vacant land data, we have created a map to show just how much lands is lying vacant--meaning a developer would NOT have to knock down existing buildings to develop inside the UGA as Commissioner French has repeatedly claimed.

So how do the commissioners justify this growth at all costs stance?  At the March 21 hearing Commissioner Mielke claimed that the county "loses more money" in litigation when they tell developers "no" then when they face litigation by neighborhoods and environmental groups seeking to enforce GMA and environmental laws. Futurewise is investigating this claim, which, if true points to serious problems with the way the county implements policy and/or defends against litigation.

What’s Going on with the Spokane County Shoreline Master Plan?

That's a good question. Now more than ever, we know we need to protect our water and that once our waterfronts are overdeveloped there is no reclaiming them for nature, or public access. So why isn't Spokane County diligently working to protect the Spokane River, The Little Spokane River, Hangman Creek, and the 73 lakes in Spokane County?

The wheels came off Spokane County's process in October of 2009 after the Department of Ecology (DOE) held a hearing on the County's draft where scores of citizens testified in favor of better shoreline protections. DOE sent the county back to the drawing board as much of the plan was out of compliance with state law which mandates no net loss of the ecological functions of our shorelines and has been in negotiations with the county on a new draft ever since.

The update which would bring Spokane County's 1974 Shoreline Master Plan into compliance with current state law has been overdue for years. The current shoreline regulations were created after the passage of the WA Shoreline Management Act which was approved by voters in 1972. We know much more about shoreline ecology than we did in the 70's. The Shoreline Management Act has been updated by the legislature to reflect this. Spokane County is also required to come into compliance with the new state standards and modern best practices.

There are lots of water issues. Why is the shorelines piece so important?

Shoreline development affects our water quality and public access to our waterbodies in ways that are much more evident to the average person who enjoys them than a combined sewer overflow or a TMDL for PCBs and are just as important.

Here are a few examples:


Development resulting from some of the proposed changes in the County's last draft (like the reductions of shoreline buffers and increases in density) will likely result in a significant increase in phosphorus and other nutrients into the Spokane River from so called "non-point" residential sources like lawns and septic tanks-which are huge cumulative contributors of pollutants in our river that are largely left out of the debate.

The difference between a 200 foot development buffer and a 50 foot development buffer will not only affect habitat and food supply for local wildlife, it can make a huge difference in the experience of kayakers, canoers and fisherfolk. The closer we allow buildings and lawns to our rivers and lakes, the more potential for fish smothering phosphorus runoff to pollute our streams and cause toxic algae blooms that sicken swimmers in Lake Spokane.

The proliferation of personal docks threatens habitat, and effectively makes parts of our public waters private property.

Allowing higher residential densities on hitherto undeveloped shorelines impedes public access and puts more strain on our aquifer.
 
Lack of adequate channel migration zones on Hangman Creek threaten efforts to restore its shorelines and protect it from agricultural runoff and mean that it's tendency to meander could cause catastrophic damage to homes built where there should have been buffers.

Futurewise is continuing to track developments within the county and DOE and eagerly awaits a new draft. Stay tuned for opportunities to comment...again. Thank you for your support as we follow through with this challenging process.

Thank you Futurewise Members!

Spokane County recently tried to pull off an emergency Urban Growth Area expansion to accommodate its controversial new jail. Thanks to your efforts the jail is now on hold!

A new jail site located miles away from the Spokane County Courthouse is a bad idea. Spokane County's Urban Growth Area (UGA) already covers over 89 square miles, this is more than 2.5 times larger than the City of Paris, France which has nearly 5 times the population. Yet 25% of growth in the last decade has happened outside the UGA and the UGA itself is well below its planned capacity. The county’s own land quantity analysis shows that there are plenty of sites within the urban growth area to locate major public facilities. There is no emergency requiring an expansion. The county needs to lead the way and do more to focus growth inside existing cities rather than invest in sprawl, increasing costs to taxpayers and stretching our urban services to the breaking point. The vehicle trips generated by this project will cause congestion and wear and tear impacts to our transportation system, our air quality, and generate much more greenhouse gas emissions than if the county had chosen a site closer to the courthouse. It will also cost the county more in transportation costs to operate a new jail at this site. We can do better. We can plan our essential public facilities and our criminal justice program to be fiscally responsible, consistent with the Comprehensive Plan, and our communities' shared goals and values.

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