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Not enough information and time played big parts in the Spokane Valley City Council not reaching closure Tuesday on two ongoing topics: the Sprague/Appleway Revitalization Plan and a design-study for a new city hall.
After three years of study and deliberation, the council wasn’t quite prepared to put the revitalization plan – dubbed SARP – to bed at its regular meeting after there were still some issues related to prelocated streets, parking and other topics along the busy corridor that needed to be worked through.
While the council came to some tentative decisions, there are still unknowns, such as when – or if – the city will assume control of county-owned right-of-way to extend Appleway Boulevard farther east from University Road.
Council Member Diana Wilhite and Mayor Richard Munson raised the question whether it made sense for property owners between University and Evergreen to give up portions of their land for future roadways if it could take decades for Appleway to be completed.
“My question is, if it takes 30 or 40 years from now (for Appleway to be extended to Evergreen), do we need to prelocate those streets?” asked Munson.
The prevailing opinion from city staff and the rest of the council was yes. Appleway’s extension is a priority of the city just for traffic-movement purposes alone, Council Member Bill Gothmann said.
“We have intersections that are failing – it needs to happen,” he said.
Munson said, however, that there is a “lot of flexibility” in what’s built into SARP, as property owners will benefit from extra frontage if a street – in many cases a north-south connector between Appleway and Sprague – needs to be built.
On the topic of parking lots, the council agreed that there should be one tree planted for every five parking spaces to provide shade and to add green space. A concrete island would also be placed at the end of each row to help break up the lots and to protect cars on the ends.
Wilhite was again in the minority when she said there should be fewer trees required by property owners.
“Trees are nice, but I don’t want to say people have to have a certain number,” she said.
Munson said that there are certain aspects to the plan that will require business owners and developers to spend some dollars.
“It is going to cost more money (for the trees),” he said. “But we want it to look nice.”
The council decided to hold off on finishing work on the SARP – discussion still remains on how parking would be configured on the AutoRow portion of Sprague between Dishman-Mica and the freeway interchange and the number of lanes along the entire length of the corridor – until next Tuesday’s meeting at 6 p.m. at City Hall.
The council is also expected to schedule future public hearings on the SARP. Initially, a hearing was planned for April 14, but that may now be pushed back to give more time for public review of the plan.
It was also decided to table a discussion on whether or not to spend $377,000 on a study for a schematic design of the proposed city hall to be located in the area of the new city center at University and Sprague. That topic will be brought up again at a future meeting after staff gathers more information on the scope of the study.
During the public-comment portion of the meeting, three spoke against the city moving forward with any kind of study. Mary Pollard – a Greenacres resident and frequent city critic – said that spending nearly $400,000 on a study in these economic times was “just insensitive.”
“We’re not in any hurry and you haven’t even bought the property,” Pollard said. “Save (the money) for an emergency.”
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By
Mike Huffman
