KayCee Downey, Planner II, 509.625.6500, No Phone Number Available
Wednesday, March 4, 2026 at 11:10 a.m.
The City of Spokane has reached a milestone in the PlanSpokane 2046 effort, releasing the Draft Environmental Impact Statement late last year to hear community feedback on how the city should grow for the next twenty years.
A Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) identifies and analyzes a range of alternatives that describe different ways the City could grow and develop. Another option for the city was also reviewed through the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. To help streamline development, cities are encouraged to adopt strategies to make it easier to build housing, with a common way to do that being to adopt changes to the SEPA process.
The State Environmental Policy Act – commonly referred to as SEPA – is a state process to identify and analyze potential environmental impacts associated with governmental decisions. Enacted in 1971, the law allows state and local agencies to evaluate proposed development and regulatory amendments to learn whether the project causes any negative environmental impacts and may require mitigation. Since 1971, many other environmental regulations have been adopted, especially around the protection of critical areas such as flood prone areas, or wetlands.
As part of the PlanSpokane 2046 Draft Environmental Impact Statement, the City of Spokane has studied the impacts of a potential SEPA infill exemption. To accommodate infill development in urban areas, the City can establish an infill exemption where residential, mixed-use, and small format commercial development that is consistent with City regulations is not required to undergo new environmental review, provided that the probable adverse environmental impacts have already been reviewed and addressed. To have a better understanding of potential implications of the proposal, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement looked at a two-phase approach:
Phase 1: Apply the SEPA infill exemption to areas closer to the core of the city, where the areas are already urbanized with less environmental constraints and with greater access to multimodal transportation.
Phase 2: Apply the SEPA infill exemption at a later date to the rest of the city, or to additional portions of the city, after appropriate processes and impact fee structures are in place to mitigate potential development.
As part of the state requirement to adopt a SEPA infill exemption, the City of Spokane would conduct the environmental review for anticipated development through an Environmental Impact Statement and has begun that process with the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
In addition to reviewing environmental impacts and identifying mitigation through the PlanSpokane 2046 Environmental Impact Statement, there are numerous rules and regulations that apply environmental standards during the development process that would need to be met regardless of whether a SEPA review is required or not. Those standards include the Critical Areas Ordinance, Shoreline Master Program, Stormwater regulations, Utility standards, and more.
The City of Spokane already has locally specific SEPA thresholds, exempting certain development from SEPA review. For instance, the state requires that single-unit developments made up of four or fewer homes not require SEPA review. The City of Spokane does not require review for developments of 20 single-unit homes or fewer.
Details of the City of Spokane’s current categorical exemptions and threshold determinations can be found in Title 17E Environmental Standards.
The proposed SEPA Infill exemption does not allow all development within the City of Spokane to bypass SEPA. Only residential development, mixed-use development, and commercial development not exceeding 65,000 square feet would be exempt under the proposal. This means larger-scale commercial uses, industrial, or other more impactful development would still require SEPA review. Additionally, only projects that build to the assumed allowances are exempt. If a project requires a separate planning action – such as a rezone or subdivision – SEPA review would be required. This allows the City of Spokane to streamline the already reviewed and envisioned development, while still requiring additional review for any changes to what was anticipated.
Under state law, several exceptions to SEPA requirements are allowed. A full list of exemptions can be found on the Washington Department of Ecology website.
Infill and housing exemptions are specifically permitted to accommodate development, allowing cities and counties to adopt the SEPA categorical exemption within certain bounds. Details can be found in RCW 43.21C.229.
By allowing more projects to occur without SEPA review, a SEPA infill exemption reduces the amount of time and money spent on new development. Aside from the time and technical expertise required to develop a SEPA checklist, the review period of the checklist can also delay projects.
But does that delay lead to changes in development? For the City of Spokane, most projects either do not require mitigation or only require minor mitigation that could instead be incorporated into a regulatory requirement. From 2020 to 2025, one-third of projects subject to SEPA review for a Building permit did not require any mitigation, over one-third required a cultural resource survey or inadvertent discovery plan, and the remaining projects involved impact fees or other street related change. No SEPA reviews led to significant changes in the actual development.
Rather than require a SEPA review for many of the minor mitigations required over the last five years, there is a potential to incorporate additional requirements into the regulatory framework of the City. For instance, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement recommends identifying a process to share information and better understand potential impacts to cultural resources, which would better identify projects that should include a cultural resource survey or an inadvertent discovery plan.
As mentioned above, most of the projects that currently require a SEPA checklist do not result in any significant mitigation that could not be addressed through standard regulations. However, each checklist must be reviewed by City staff to make that determination. By no longer requiring SEPA review for projects that are not expected to result in any mitigation, it frees up staff capacity to review other permits and further streamline the review of projects.
Learn more about the considered SEPA-review exemptions to promote infill development and housing.
Have questions or comments? Email the project team at PlanSpokane@spokanecity.org.
Learn more at the PlanSpokane 2046 webpage at PlanSpokane.org.
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