MetroSpokane

Neighborhoods, an asset to Spokane

The City of Spokane's Comprehensive Plan was adopted with the premise that "neighborhood planning is an important community process in the City of Spokane that will serve to fulfill the vision of the comprehensive plan while ensuring that neighborhoods continue to be the foundation of a strong community" (City of Spokane Comprehensive Plan 11.4.8).  In the Comprehensive Plan the city laid out its commitment to neighborhood based planning.  Unfortunately with the recent budget cuts, neighborhood planning was one of the first programs to go. 

Planning at the local level has been shown to be an effective tool in neighborhood development.  Planning brings a community together and through various techniques of community development and strategic planning residents are able to voice their concerns and find ways to build on their assets.  It is a very powerful process that the City of Spokane should be encouraging.  Various organizations such as the Neighborhood Alliance of Spokane County advocates for increased collaboration and sustainability at the neighborhood level.  However, with little resources it is nearly impossible for neighborhoods to undertake a planning effort on their own.  The Neighborhood Alliance provides assistance, but with out a full time staff member working with each neighborhood, planning is almost impossible.

Through a Community Outreach Partnership Center HUD grant, the East Central Neighborhood has been able to have faculty and students of Eastern Washington University and the Community Colleges of Spokane provide staff members and technical assistance to help the neighborhood develop their plan.  A Stakeholder Group of 40 residents was developed to help guide the direction of the plan.  The plan is made up of nine elements ranging from transportation to land use.  The Stakeholders represented the residents of the neighborhood and provided opportunity for public input at the South Perry Street Faire, Unity in the Community, and two large public meetings held in February 2004 and October 2004.  Overall hundreds of residents gave input into this plan.  The plan was adopted by the Stakeholder group and later the Neighborhood Council and is on its way to the Planning Commission and City Council.

East Central hopes to provide their process and planning principles to other neighborhoods in the city, so they will be able to benefit by planning for their own neighborhoods.  It is important that the City recognize that the neighborhoods represent the fabric of this community and their voice and vision of the future needs to be adopted into the Comprehensive Plan.

Birth of a Freeway...

Way up north of the city center, construction moves ahead on a project with little fanfare. The earthmovers and the graders continue to do their work day after day in plain sight of thousands of commuters and citizens running errands. The project is the aptly named the North/South Corridor. We at MetroSpokane suppose the term “corridor” is used because it has a softer meaning. Using a word like “freeway” would bring images of I-90 or I-405 in Seattle, and this is not Seattle.

From the ground the project looks harmless enough: Wide open spaces and some large berms of soil are really all you can see. Up in the air, the future development patterns of Spokane become apparent: Sprawl. Lots of it. Forget growth management. Even if it is doing much good in Spokane, this project of WSDOT is going to more than offset any of the Growth Management Act’s benefits. A recent paper by urban planner Bill Grimes examines in pretty good detail the effects I-90 had on development patterns in the Spokane Valley. His prognosis for North Spokane and the rural communities north of the city are to expect the sprawling, auto-centric development similar to what we see in Post Falls, the Rathdrum Prairie, Liberty Lake, and East Spokane Valley.

Across the country, other cities are having open and engaging dialogues with their citizens regarding DOT mandated projects similar to our North/South Freeway. The mayors are involved, the city councils, and 'gasp' even the planning departments.  Unlike Spokane, these cities are not lying prostrate and giving up the future of their city to state-level engineers concerned more about traffic-flow and levels of service than the repercussions of their projects. There seems to be a higher level of activism in other places. Who knows why. In San Francisco, the citizens managed to rally to protest a number of freeway projects that would have changed their city’s personality dramatically. They are actually in the process of removing some of their freeways. Across the state in Seattle they will be getting a new tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct that was damaged during the earthquake a few years back. Portland, meanwhile, as part of its “River-to River” redevelopment strategy is considering alternatives to the I-5/I-405 loop as it snakes through the east side of the city and blocks access for residents.

In Spokane, our media lauds the short-term economic benefits of job creation.  It appears that this project has enough inertia now that it'll likely come into fruition.  A figure of $1.4 billion will have been spent to see this through.  Currently, the least expensive option for a light rail in Spokane is just over $200 million.  Consider what the East Central neighborhood will be like when this behemoth intersects with I-90.  Elevated to a height of about 40' as it passes over Sprague Avenue, East Central is going to have around 16 lanes of concrete bliss to deal with.  I'm sure the neighborhood will bounce back.  Look at how well it has done since I-90 blundered through in the 50s. 

When all is said and done, in twenty years time Spokane will be a dramatically easier place to get up north by car, but we have a fear that it might be a less interesting and distinct place to visit and live.  Could it be:  Spokane:  Near Freeways.  Near Perfect?

Links
freeway revolt
seattle viaduct - the other side of the story - thanks urbaner!