Brian Walker, 509-625-6765
Friday, August 4, 2023 at 2:51 p.m.
WHAT: Annual opportunity to amend the City of Spokane Comprehensive Plan
WHO: Adjacent Jurisdictions, Developers and Citizens
WHEN: Mandatory pre-submittal meetings are being scheduled now. The application period runs from Sept. 1 to Oct. 31.
INFO.: To schedule a pre-submittal meeting or to ask Comprehensive Plan Amendment process questions, contact Senior Planner Kevin Freibott at (509) 625-6184 or email compplan@spokanecity.org.
The City of Spokane's Comprehensive Plan addresses many facets of city life, including land use, transportation, capital facilities, housing, economic development, natural environment and parks, neighborhoods, social health, urban design, historic preservation, and leadership. Most years, the City of Spokane conducts an annual process to consider amendments to the Comprehensive Plan from citizens, developers, and adjacent jurisdictions.
The City will accept applications from interested parties, including members of the public, between Sept. 1 and Oct. 31 of this year. Prior to submitting an application packet, however, interested parties must contact the Planning & Economic Department to schedule a pre-submission meeting with staff. During that meeting, the process and fees will be discussed as well as the specific amendment(s) the applicant hopes to propose. Applicants will also be provided with the application packet during that meeting.
Initial applications are subject to an initial process by which the City Council will determine which applications move forward for full processing. For those applications accepted into the program, a 10-month process will be undertaken, including an agency/department comment period, public comment period, and one or more workshops with the Spokane Plan Commission.
Applications are then subject to a Spokane Plan Commission hearing, during which a recommendation to the City Council to adopt or deny is made by the Commission. Following that, City Council will hold one or more hearings on the proposal before making a final decision on the application. The process from application submittal to decision can take 12 to 14 months. In a typical year, there are five to 10 Comprehensive Plan Amendment applications to consider.
In addition to the annual amendment cycle, the City is required to consider and adopt a major Periodic Update to the Comprehensive Plan no later than spring of 2026. This Periodic Update is mandated by state law and will require significant work to complete. Accordingly, it is possible that the City will not accept applications from the public to amend the Comprehensive Plan after this year’s application cycle until the Periodic Update is complete.
Those considering a Comprehensive Plan Amendment are encouraged to submit an application this year, as there is no guarantee the City will consider private applications in 2024 or 2025 due to the work on the Periodic Update.
If you have questions regarding the Comprehensive Plan Amendment process, or would like to schedule a pre-submittal meeting, contact Senior Planner Kevin Freibott at (509) 625-6184 or email compplan@spokanecity.org.
The Growth Management Act specifies that amendments to a comprehensive plan cannot be made more frequently than once per year. The purpose for this is two-fold. It gives the plan stability over time, avoiding spontaneous changes in response to development pressures. It groups all proposed amendments in a common process for consideration, providing the opportunity to examine their collective effects on the plan.
