Spokane Valley to work on historic preservation ordinance

Thu., July 2, 2015

By Pia Hallenberg piah@spokesman.com (509) 459-5427

New hearing for mining moratorium

Spokane Valley re-established its moratorium on mining Tuesday evening and scheduled a new public hearing for July 28.

Erik Lamb said that regardless of media coverage and mentions in agenda notices emailed out by the city, it appeared that sufficient public notice of the public hearing on March 24 had not been given.

Re-establishing the moratorium Tuesday evening does not extend it beyond its original deadline of Feb. 23, but it allows for yet another public hearing during the City Council meeting on July 28.

“There is no change to the operative language in the moratorium,” Lamb said, “and we don’t believe this will impact current lawful mining operations on existing sites.”

The Spokane Valley City Council unanimously decided Tuesday evening to ask staff to work on the wording of a historic preservation ordinance.

Spokane Valley development engineer Gloria Mantz was back before the council for the third time, with answers to the council’s earlier questions on historic preservation programs.

Council members have expressed concerns that an ordinance would override property rights and allow the city to assign historic significance to some properties against the owner’s will.

That, Mantz said, is absolutely not the case. She said the city can word its own ordinance – and it does not have to be worded the same way as Spokane’s historic preservation ordinance.

“If Spokane ends up running our program that may create some confusion,” Mantz said, “but the programs do not have to be the same.”

Mantz added that an interlocal agreement with Spokane makes sense because Spokane’s program is 30 years old and manages 350 properties, about half of which are eligible for tax discounts.

The council wanted to know how much it would cost to run a historic preservation program, and Mantz said it’s tricky to estimate the total cost, not knowing how many applications Spokane Valley would receive.

She said Spokane receives about 20 applications a year, and she expected perhaps 10 applications in Spokane Valley.

Based on those numbers, she estimated the cost of the program would be a little more than $16,000 per year, utilizing an interlocal agreement with Spokane’s Historic Preservation Office.

Using a database created by Spokane Valley Heritage Museum, Mantz had identified about 100 Spokane Valley properties that could qualify for a historic preservation program and the resulting tax credits.

She emphasized that it’s the owner of the property that has to sign off on the historic nomination.

“So it really is a volunteer program,” Mayor Dean Grafos said.

Council member Chuck Hafner was still worried that the historic preservation committee could make decisions that couldn’t be overturned by the council.

Mantz said that wouldn’t be the case because the historic preservation committee would function just like the planning commission – its decisions could be repealed by the City Council.