Spokane Municipal Code & Comprehensive
Plan Policies
(italicized text is are quotes from the Spokane Municipal
Code and Comprehensive Plan. Non italicized text are the author's commentary.)
Contents:
Introduction
Spokane Municipal Code
Revised
Code of Washington
Selected
Comprehensive Plan Policies
Comprehensive Plan Analysis
City Attorney's Analysis
Back to
Index of Documents
Introduction
“The City of Spokane began planning under
the Washington State Growth Management Act (GMA) as of July 1, 1993.
Based on nearly eight years of process, six years of meetings with hundreds
of civic organizations, input from thousands of citizens, and countless
hours of deliberations, the City Plan Commission recommended a new comprehensive
plan to the City Council on January 17, 2001. After months of public hearings
and study sessions with the City Plan Commission, the City Council adopted
their revised version of this comprehensive plan on May 21, 2001.”
(Comprehensive Plan, page ii).
What follows is a sampling of Comprehensive Plan (goals and policies)
that have not been adequately addressed by the City's current draft design
for the Bernard Street project or other 2004 Street Bond projects. As
such, these projects fail to conform to and implement the comprehensive
plan. Failure to conform to and implement the comprehensive plan
puts these street bond projects in violation of Section 17B.010.010 of
the City's Municipal Code, which reads:
Spokane Municipal Code
Title 17B Comprehensive Plan and Sub-area Plans
Chapter 17B.010 Comprehensive Plan
Section 17B.010.010 Purpose and Applicability
The comprehensive plan of the City is the document, prepared
by the city plan commission and adopted by resolution of the city council,
containing text and maps setting forth goals and policies to guide decisions
about the future orderly development of the City, which are designed to
enhance the fiscal, physical, social, cultural and economic well-being
of its population. “Comprehensive” means that the plan encompasses all
geographic parts of the City and all functional elements such as land
use, circulation and community facilities, and their relationship to one
another, the environment, and the metropolitan community.
The adopted comprehensive plan is intended to guide and give
direction to City-wide development over a relatively long period of
time. The land use codes shall be consistent with and implement the
comprehensive plan. Public improvements through
the investment of public capital funds, regardless of the source, are
to conform to and implement the comprehensive plan.
Locations of features shown on comprehensive plan maps are considered
general unless specific plans have provided more precise delineation.
Map boundaries or locations are subject to interpretation by the planning
director, hearing examiner, plan commission or city council as the case
may be.
For the comprehensive plan to have integrity and effect, it must
be stable over several decades. To retain stability and integrity, the
plan should not be subject to frequent changes. Nevertheless it must
be kept up-to-date to accommodate the changing times. Therefore, the comprehensive
plan is subject to amendment through the deliberate, purposeful and public
process described in chapter 17G.060 SMC.
Date Passed: Monday, February 21, 2005
ORD C33581 Section 1
Revised
Code of Washington
2004 Street Bond projects also violate the Revised
Code of Washington (RCW):
RCW 36.70A.120
Planning activities and capital budget decisions — Implementation in conformity
with comprehensive plan.
Each county and city that is required or chooses
to plan under RCW 36.70A.040 shall perform its activities and make capital
budget decisions in conformity with its comprehensive plan.
[1993 sp.s. c 6 § 3; 1990 1st ex.s. c 17 § 12.]
Notes:
Effective date -- 1993 sp.s. c 6: See note following
RCW 36.70A.040.
Selected policies from
Spokane's Comprehensive Plan
“TR 2 TRANSPORTATION OPTIONS
Goal: Provide a variety of transportation options, including
walking, bicycling, taking the bus, car pooling, and driving private
automobiles, to ensure that all citizens have viable travel options
and reduce dependency on automobiles.
TR 2.8 Sidewalk Repair and Replacement
Repair and replace broken and uneven sidewalks to improve safety
and to encourage use by pedestrians.
TR 2.12 Pedestrian Access to Schools
Enhance the pedestrian environment along routes to schools to provide a
safe walking environment for children.
TR 4.2 Self-Enforcing Street Design
Design streets to discourage drivers from speeding and increase
the safety of pedestrians, bicyclists, other drivers, and every person
and animal in the city.
As presently designed, Bernard does the opposite by encouraging
drivers to pass on the right. This situation is particularly dangerous
as some drivers stop for pedestrians and others, not realizing those drivers'
intentions, pass on the right.
TR 4.3 Narrow Streets
Build streets with the minimum amount of street width needed
to serve the street's purpose and calm traffic.
Discussion: Streets should be constructed as narrow as possible.
Narrow streets are less costly to build, require less maintenance, reduce
storm water runoff, help reduce the speed of traffic, conserve land for
other uses, and are safer for pedestrians. Narrow streets also serve
as an effective traffic calming measure.
The Spokane Regional Transportation Commission (SRTC) has designated
Bernard Street as a minor arterial. In SRTC’s 30-year plan, Bernard
is maintained as a two-lane street The lane width requirement for
a minor arterial that is designated as a "shared use" (with bicycles) lane
is 14'. The total width requirement for Bernard is 28'; the roadway is
presently 40'. This leaves 12' that could be dedicated to a turn lane,
parking, pedestrian buffer strips or a combination thereof. It seems safe
to suggest that Bernard could be narrowed in order to fulfill TR 4.3.
TR 4.19 Awareness of ROW Streetscape Elements
Increase the understanding and awareness of the essential importance
of pedestrian buffer strips, medians, traffic circles and other right-of-way
streetscape elements in protecting public safety and enhancing community.
Discussion: Right-of-way (ROW) streetscape elements are key tools
to help accomplish Spokane’s transportation goals. Their design, placement,
and maintenance greatly influence many transportation goals, including
efficient and safe mobility, transportation options, sense of place,
neighborhood protection, and environmental protection. An increased understanding
and awareness of the importance of ROW streetscape elements and how they
relate to Spokane’s goals and desired future is essential. Only through
increased understanding and awareness can they be intelligently planned
for and the variety of issues related to them addressed.
TR 4.20 Design and Maintenance of ROW Streetscape Elements
Design pedestrian buffer strips, medians, traffic circles and
other right-of-way streetscape elements so that they enhance public safety
and Spokane’s visual and environmental quality and can be effectively
maintained.
TR 5.1 Neighborhoods for Pedestrians
Orient, design, and maintain neighborhoods for pedestrians.
TR 5.2 Neighborhood Transportation Options
Promote a variety of transportation options within neighborhoods.
Discussion: Providing for walking, bicycling, and transit use
as viable transportation options gives residents more transportation choices
and reduces the amount of traffic in neighborhoods. Transportation choices
that are environmentally, culturally, and
historically connected to neighborhoods produce healthy and cohesive
neighborhoods.
TR 5.3 Neighborhood Traffic Issues
Work with neighborhoods to identify, assess, and respond to the
unique traffic issues and needs in each neighborhood.
Discussion: ….Areas of transportation planning that are particularly
dependent on neighborhood involvement include design issues (such as
the selection of street tree types and landscaping choices for pedestrian
buffer strips) and the location and type of traffic calming measures
and traffic control.
The Engineering Department has sent representatives to neighborhood
council meetings, the community assembly and before the City Council.
They have repeatedly announced what to expect when they reconstruct Bernard.
There is no evidence that the input of neighborhoods over the last three
months has been incorporated into any design. Lobbying activity by the
Engineering Department is not sufficient to meet this policy.
TR 5.4 Traffic Calming Measures
Use traffic calming measures in neighborhoods to discourage speeding,
reduce nonneighborhood traffic, and improve neighborhood safety.
TR 5.5 Arterials and Neighborhoods
Locate and design arterials to minimize impacts on neighborhoods.
Discussion: The impacts of arterials on neighborhoods should
be minimized. Arterials that through poor design or location divide
neighborhoods should be avoided. Arterials do not have to be vast stretches
of asphalt that separate and isolate neighborhoods.
TR 7.3 Street Trees
Plant street trees wherever possible to enhance the transportation
environment
Discussion: A healthy “urban forest” is one of the greatest assets
a city can have. It is also one of the few infrastructure elements
that appreciate in value with age. For transportation purposes, street
trees have many benefits; they provide a traffic calming effect, help
orient motorists, provide shade and habitat, reduce glare, noise, erosion,
and wind, and absorb carbon monoxide. Large trees with overhanging canopies
of branches are especially desirable. Streets with a cathedral of trees
overhead are an important aesthetic element that fosters community pride
and identity.
One concern in planning for street trees is to ensure that public
safety is protected by preventing sidewalks and curbs from being damaged
by tree roots. This problem can be addressed through the design of the
pedestrian buffer strip and the selection of the appropriate tree type
for the planting site. In addition, planting techniques such as root
barriers, “structural soil,” and irrigation practices are helpful mechanisms
in preventing tree roots from damaging sidewalks and curbs.
….The potential problems caused by street trees should not be
used to override their fundamental importance and overall value.
TR 7.4 Pedestrian Buffer Strips
Develop pedestrian buffer strips in a way that is appropriate
to the surrounding area and desired outcomes.
TR 9.3
Dedicated Funds for Retrofitting
The City of Spokane shall dedicate some amount of its annual
transportation capital budget to retrofitting the street system to
meet the city’s pedestrian design standards.
Discussion: As noted in the “Street Standards”
(section 4.6, see subsection titled “General Considerations”), the City of
Spokane’s street standards apply to newly constructed public and private streets.
The standards are also applied in certain situations as land development
occurs (such as where level of service is impacted or where development abuts
an existing arterial). The standards, however, are
not intended to apply to the resurfacing, restoration, or rehabilitation of
existing arterials. Without this policy, little would be done to retrofit
the City of Spokane’s existing street system to meet the new pedestrian design
standards and thus achieve the intent of the transportation element.
(The Transportation Capital Facilities Program does include a program to construct
sidewalks along arterials where they are missing, but no other such retrofitting
program was planned as part of the comprehensive planning process.) This
policy is a practical, direct way to implement the City of Spokane’s pedestrian
standards and create Spokane’s desired transportation future. The fundamental pedestrian standard to be implemented is
the policy to provide for safe pedestrian circulation, primarily in the form
of sidewalks with a pedestrian buffer strip (TR 2.7, “Safe Sidewalks”).
TR 10.2 Innovation to Meet Spirit
Review proposals for development projects in a way that allows
innovative design and for solutions that meet the spirit and intent
of the law, if not the letter of the law.
DP 1.3 Urban Trees and Landscape Areas
Maintain, improve, and increase the amount of landscaped area
in the urban environment and, at a minimum, replace any tree that needs
to be removed from publicly owned property.
Discussion: The public urban cityscape with its pavement, automobiles,
and pollution can be a harsh environment for landscape vegetation and
can create less than optimal growing conditions for the plants
and trees. This situation can often be tolerated, for it is the well-being
and pleasure of the human occupants of the city that these landscaped
areas and trees are provided….While it is impractical to require replacement
trees to be of like size, the existing character, site, and the desired
effect should be considered in determining the minimum size and species.
DP 3.5 Urban Forestry Program
Develop and support a comprehensive urban forestry program
Discussion: An urban forestry program includes an inventory of
existing trees and all available tree locations and establishes goals
for new and replacement tree planting and total canopy cover. Needed
are citywide regulations and street standards that require establishing
and maintaining plantings in traffic islands and planting strips and that
allow large canopy street trees.
DP 7 LOCAL DETERMINATION
Goal: Make neighborhoods attractive, safe places by encouraging
residents to express their design and development values through local
and sub-area planning efforts.
DP 7.1 Design Guidelines in Neighborhood Planning
Include design guidelines in neighborhood planning processes
to address local urban design issues.
Discussion: Neighborhood residents are the best equipped to determine
what neighborhood design details and elements represent the particular
characteristics of their specific area.
DP 7.2 Neighborhood Involvement in the City Design Review
Process
Encourage the neighborhoods to participate in the city’s design
review process.
NE 12.1 Street Trees
Plant trees along all streets.
Discussion: Installing street trees along all residential and
arterial streets is the easiest and most cost effective way to secure
the environmental benefits of urban forestry. Street trees planted in
buffer strips between the curb and sidewalk should be included in every street project or private development.
N 4.10 Pedestrian Design
Design neighborhoods for pedestrians.
Discussion: Neighborhoods become more stable, desirable living
environments through the use of basic community building design principles
that include more transportation options, convenience, safety, social
interaction, and aesthetically pleasing streetscapes. Neighborhoods
that possess these qualities provide a sense of place and community
for neighborhood residents. Pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods can be
created through the use of parking strips, street trees, sidewalks, pedestrian
and bicycle paths, pedestrian malls, landscaping, traffic calming devices,
rear parking for businesses, screened or underground parking for multifamily
housing, and systems routing traffic away from neighborhoods.”
N 4.12 Pedestrian Buffer Strips
Require that sidewalks be separated from the street by a pedestrian
buffer strip on all new
or redeveloped streets to provide a safe place to walk.
Discussion: New or redeveloped neighborhoods should be required to incorporate
pedestrian
buffer strips along sidewalks in order to provide a buffer between the sidewalk
and street. Buffer
strips protect pedestrians from street traffic and also serve as areas where
snow can be plowed
during the winter months rather than being plowed directly onto sidewalks,
which impedes
walking. The city will work with neighborhoods that do not have separated
sidewalks to help them
develop a sidewalk snow removal program.
What we have here are over twenty policies that are being ignored
or violated in the spending of the 2004 Street Bond. We have found no
policy that supports the current draft designs of street reconstruction
projects. If you are aware of other municipal
code or comprehensive plan policies that do not conform to and are not
being implemented by the 2004 Street Bond projects, please
let us know.
The complete City of Spokane Comprehensive Plan may be found
at: http://www.spokaneplanning.org/Documents/BEGIN.PDF
Comprehensive Plan Analysis
Two comments in the Comprehensive Plan Supplemental
Transportation Chapter (18) address the priorities regarding
the city's responsibility to adhere to the comprehensive plan. The following
comments are stated as additional background and technical materials for
the main Transportation Chapter, Chapter 4. Here is the first
relevant comment, contained in Section 2:
Existing Versus Proposed Transportation Systems
First, this plan establishes a new priority for considering the
transportation needs of people and making transportation decisions.
Policy TR 1.1 establishes that it will be city policy to put pedestrians
first, then to consider the needs of those who use transit and non-motorized
transportation modes, and finally to consider the needs of automobile
users. The city’s current transportation system does not reflect this
priority and direction. Spokane’s existing transportation
system reflects Spokane’s existing auto-dependent nature. Indeed, it
is partly because of the existing nature of Spokane’s built environment
that Spokane is autodependent and lacking viable transportation options
and, as a consequence, that citizens established this new direction.
Following this new direction with its clear transportation priorities,
however, will lead to new transportation systems that reflect the city’s
new transportation goals. Establishing these new transportation systems
for Spokane will take time. It will take careful and steady implementation
of the plan, as expressed in its goals, policies, and implementation
methods (such as the new street standards). But with consistent implementation
of the plan on a case by case basis, the community’s built environment
will change and with it, the opportunity for Spokane to achieve its desired
future.
This discussion would indicate that it is the policy of the city
to rebuild its infrastructure with the vision of the comprehensive plan
in mind. It is difficult to imagine how the goals of the comprehensive
plan will ever be achieved if the city does not rebuild its infrastructure
as indicated in this paragraph.
However, the City's Engineering Department and the Citizens' Streets
Advisory Committee (CSAC) cite another comment in Chapter 18, Section
3, to excuse themselves from adhering to comprehensive plan policy.
This discussion reads:
Proposed Street Standards
The proposed City of Spokane street standards, hereafter
referred to as “Standards”, are intended to apply to all newly constructed
public and private streets. As required by the city,
these Standards would also apply to the reconstruction of arterials as outlined
in the current capital improvement program.....
....The Standards are not intended to
apply to the resurfacing, restoration, or rehabilitation of existing arterials.
Any deviation, variance, or dispute to the Standards may be presented
to the city in writing based upon sound engineering principles that maintain
safety, function, appearance, and maintainability as priorities.
A critical distinction to be made here is that Section 3 forgives
adherence to "physical street standards."
Comprehensive Plan section 4.6, "Street Standards," the first paragraph reads:
"This section describes the physical street standards to be used
for street improvement projects.... Transportation preservation projects
(projects involving the resurfacing, rehabilitation, or reconstruction of
the street pavement, sidewalks, or bridges) are exempt from these standards."
"These standards" referred to in Section 4.6 are enumerated
for arterials on page 61 of the Plan:
"these Standards include the descriptions and/or requirements for the
planning data, such as traffic volumes, number of lanes, lane widths, medians,
sidewalks, 208 treatment/drainage, bicycle lanes, on-street parking, building
set-backs, posted speed limits, and access spacing."
The exemption granted by the Comprehensive Plan for street projects is limited
to the "physical street standards." The purpose for this exception is found
in the discussion following Comprehensive Plan policy TR 9.3. The exception
was included in order to retrofit the existing street system to meet the
city's new pedestrian design standards.
4.6 does not forgive adherence to comprehensive plan policies, the
municipal code or the Revised Code of Washington. One parenthetical sentence which appears
to contemplate an exemption in a discussion section of the comprehensive
plan does not carry forward into a policy, code or state law. The Plan
Commission, City Council and Mayor's Administration must abide and be
directed by the policies and the adopted codes. As documented
above, there are an abundance of comprehensive plan policies that are mandated
by the Spokane Municipal Code.
Engineering and CSAC claim that the 2004 Street Bond projects constitute
"resurfacing, restoration or rehabilitation." This language
allows street repair without having to adhere to rigorous engineering specifications
which would require reconstruction of the entire street. However,
reconstruction of the entire street, with the attendant rigorous engineering
specifications, is exactly what is being proposed on Bernard.
This includes removal and replacement of the road base, reconstruction
of some curb sections, replacement of some sidewalk sections and installing
ADA compliant ramps at intersections.
The Citizens' Streets Advisory Commission, the city Public
Works and Engineering departments and some elected officials maintain
that the spending of 2004 Street Bond funds is exempt from policy mandated
by the comprehensive plan because these are not "capital" projects but "maintenance"
projects. This interpretation conforms to their long standing practice of
referring to "capital" projects as those funded in part by the state and
federal governments for safely improvements and new construction, while "maintenance"
projects are those funded by local taxpayers. However, it is not the source
of funds but the means of financing that determines whether or not a project
is considered "capital" or "maintenance." "Maintenance projects"
are commonly paid for out of the city's general fund. These include street
sweeping, snow plowing, pothole repair, striping and any other activity required
to keep the street in usable condition. "Capital" projects are more expensive
and require long term financing. The simple fact that these street projects
are paid for by long term financing paid for with a property tax levy puts
them in the "capital projects" category.
City
Attorney's Analysis
Two memorandum have been written by personnel
in the City Attorney's office regarding the Bernard Street project.
The first, issued on January 19, 2006, was in regard to the jurisdiction
of the city's Design Review Committee regarding these sections from
the Spokane Municipal Code: Section
04.13.010 and Section
04.13.020 or read highlighted sections here.
Read the City Attorney's memorandum opining the DRC has no jurisdiction
here.
The second, issued on February 9, 2006, was an analysis
of "numerous provisions in the Spokane Municipal Code and
Comprehensive Plan regarding street trees." It may be read here.
Notice that neither memorandum addresses
the more relevant section of the Spokane Municipal Code, Section
17B.010.010 or the Revised Code of Washington, RCW 36.70A.120 enumerated at the top of this page.
We only wish to publish accurate information. If you
find an error(s) on this page, please report it/them on our contact
page. Thank you.
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