City considers changes to residential zoning code

Spokane City Council members have been talking about rewriting the city’s residential zoning code for the past five years, ever since they adopted a sweeping comprehensive land-use plan under the state Growth Management Law.

The city zoning code has not been revised for 48 years, but now a series of public meetings, work sessions and briefings is leading up to council consideration of a new plan.

On Monday, the council will take public testimony and possibly vote on adoption of the proposed new code. The hearing will be held during the council’s regular 6 p.m. legislative session in the Council Chambers at City Hall and will be televised on cable Channel 5.

A public open house to provide information on the proposal will be Monday from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in the Chase Gallery outside the Council Chambers.

Councilman Al French, who helped guide the drafting of the new code, said the proposal already contains input from neighborhood groups and citizens at large.

“The staff has certainly done a lot of work to educate the public,” he said.

In a video summary on the planning department’s Web site, French explains that the proposal takes the city from a mind-set of the 1950s to a modern approach to urban living.

Proposed are a series of provisions that will create new types of housing, greater population density in neighborhoods and buffers between residential and commercial areas. The proposal encourages cottage-style housing, attached housing, row houses and accessory dwelling units.

When the council in the early 1990s sought to revise the zoning code, in part by allowing accessory dwelling units in single-family neighborhoods, the proposal was shot down by community opposition.

The city has since been forced by changes in state law to allow accessory dwelling units and to increase density in already developed neighborhoods as a way of easing urban sprawl.

In 2001, the council adopted a so-called “growth management” land-use law that seeks to move growth to urban centers and corridors and to provide incentives for higher density uses in those areas.

The proposed new zoning code would provide the detail to implement the residential portion of the broader planning policies.

Already, the council has approved industrial and commercial zoning provisions.

The residential code proposal affects 80 percent of the land area in the city and is the last step in completing the new zoning code under a state-required transition to growth-management land use.

Under the new code, homes located next to multifamily or commercial areas will be buffered from tall buildings through a transition provision in which buildings of 100 feet in height or taller must be at least 150 feet away from lower-density residential zones.

Several older neighborhoods that had been opened for duplexes and smaller apartment buildings, but are predominately single-family in nature, will be “downzoned” to single-family uses to reflect the prevailing character of those areas, including portions of the West Central and Logan areas on the North Side.

Also, some other areas will be “upzoned” to reflect more intense uses in those areas now.

French said the changes could draw opposition during next month’s public testimony.

For more information, contact planning staffers Heather Trautman at 625-6147, Ken Pelton at 625-6063 or Louis Meuler at 625-6096.