Check our Minutes and Agendas page for the agenda for our June meeting and minutes from May.
FYI, there is a traffic follow up meeting for Regal Commons at the Perry Branch of the Spokane Public Library from 5pm-6pm before the SNC meeting at 7pm at ESD 101. I hope you can make time for both.
We’ll see you on June 7th at 7pm at ESD 101!
The developers of the Regal Commons, the former Regal Lumber Site, will be holding a traffic impact meeting on Wednesday, July 5th at 5pm at the Spokane Public Library, South Hill Branch (at 3324 S. Perry Street). This is the promised/required follow-up meeting to the initial traffic study scoping meeting held in October of last year. You can read the final study ahead of time here.
We have written before, here and here, about the Regal Commons development and the potential impacts to traffic along Regal Street. Suffice to say the neighborhood council was not convinced that the SEPA Application took into account the specific land uses proposed in Phase 1 of the Regal Commons project and in some cases seemed to underestimate the amount of traffic generated by a factor of ten.
The traffic study that will be discussed addresses some of those comments, however it will be interesting to see how they decide to code the two drive through restaurants proposed along Regal Street. Originally they had these coded as “Shopping Center” buildings, grossly underestimating the amount of traffic generated by their actual use “Fast Food Restaurant with Drive Through Window.” This new study changes the designation of the drive through restaurants to, “Fast Food W/ Drive Thru as modified by the City of Spokane.” The City of Spokane Engineering Department created a modified fast food land use category for this development that tries to establish a difference between standard fast food like Burger King, Carl’s Jr., and McDonald’s versus “fast casual” restaurants like Panera, Chipotle, and Qdoba.
Now the interesting thing about fast casual restaurants is that when they are described by the industry, the differences have to do with price, menu options, and interior aesthetics. The style of service is the same: fast, drive through service. It will be interesting to see what the trip generation numbers would be comparing the original fast food land use code with the modified one from the city.
Another interesting point is that based on public testimony from the developer at City Council only one of the proposed restaurants would be classified as fast casual by industry standards. He said one of his desired tenants is Panera Bread. The other tenant mentioned was Chik Fil A, which is not a fast casual restaurant, but a standard fast food chain. So if nothing else, the trip generation report should be edited to reflect this.
I encourage you all to come down to the meeting on July 5th, there is no indication the notice that you can give comments ahead of time or by email. Though I suspect if you sent a comment to the proponent listed and CCed our City Council representatives it would be noticed. FYI, our regular neighborhood council meeting will be taking place later that evening at 7pm at ESD 101.
Tomorrow night, June 19th, the City Council will hold a hearing about the update to the City’s Comprehensive Plan. This update includes the development of a project called the Ray Street Crossover. This is an auto-oriented traffic capacity project that will run traffic across the east side of Ferris High School’s campus to connect Ray and Freya and send traffic our towards the County. 
The SNC Land Use Committee have drafted these comments for submission to the City Council members ahead of tomorrow’s hearing. I encourage everyone to read them and take few minutes to send your comments in to our City Council as well. You can reach them at the following addresses: bstuckart@spokanecity.org, lkinnear@spokanecity.org, bbeggs@spokanecity.org, awaldref@spokanecity.org, cmumm@spokanecity.org, kstratton@spokanecity.org, mfagan@spokanecity.org.
For those of you who can make it down in person, personal testimony at the hearing has a big impact Council members. The meeting is tomorrow night at 6pm at Council Chambers in City Hall.
The deletion of this project from the Comp Plan update will go a long way to maintaining the vision set forth in our neighborhood connectivity plan where we make a our neighborhood a place that encourages people to use multiple modes of transportation to move around and does not promote the development of sprawl and other features (like high-speed auto routes) that will make our neighborhood less walkable, less safe, and less livable.
P.S. – If you need something else to comment about, Spokane Rising has some thoughts about new policies in the Comp Plan update that undermine our City’s existing Complete Streets ordinance.
Update: Written comments on this topic are due to the City by Monday, July 3rd! Send your comments to Dave Compton. In person testimony will still be taken at the hearing on Thursday, July 20th.
We’ve mentioned a couple times that there is a new 13-home subdivision going in around 46th Ave. and Freya Street called Moran South Estates. This project has cleared the agency review period and the developers will be holding a hearing on the development next month.
Southgate has received a Notice of Hearing that the hearing will be Thursday, July 20th at 9:00am in the Council Briefing Center at City Hall. This is a hearing related to a “preliminary plat” which is why this isn’t happening at a convenient location or time like a community meeting.
Southgate has twice submitted comments related to this project that discuss the need to pedestrian/bike connections to the west of the proposed cul de sac per City ordinances and Comp Plan policies. Thus far these comments have not been responded to, but perhaps some added messages from the neighbors can prompt the City to respond. You can see the entire SEPA application here.
You can submit comments prior to the hearing or provide comments in person. Submit comments to Dave Compton, dcompton@spokanecity.org.
The public comment period for the KXLY Development SEPA Application ends tomorrow, June 19th, at 5:00pm. This comment period snuck up on us since there was no notification made directly to the neighborhood via mail or to the broader public via a posted sign on the property. There was apparently a notice placed in the Spokesman Review for those that read the public notice pages.
Regardless of the lack of notification, you still have a chance to have your opinions on this project heard. We have collected all the development materials on one page for your to review. SNC also submitted comments during the agency review period that you can review as well.
Some of the main topics of concern from our comments that remain to be fully answered is the true measure of traffic impacts from this development. Aside from specifically calling out the future grocery store, the developers use the more broad development category “Shopping Center” to measure their traffic impact, but we know that there are other high impact traffic generators included in the plan such as a drive-through restaurant. This would increase their traffic impact and as a result their mitigation fee to the City.
One other area of remaining concern are the developer’s plans to manage stormwater on their site. Preliminary plans show them retaining the water in a large pond under the radio tower to the west of the development. There have been concerns about groundwater saturation from neighbors upstream of the KXLY site who already experience high water tables and occasional flooding in their neighborhoods. How will the City and developer certify that paving 80% of the project site will still allow for proper infiltration and movement of storm water for these existing residents?
Whatever your views and concerns are, I encourage you to send an email to John Halsey, jhalsey@spokanecity.org, prior to the closing of the comment period tomorrow evening.
Check our Minutes and Agendas page for the agenda for our June meeting and minutes from May.
We’ll see you on June 7th at 7pm at ESD 101!
Southgate Neighborhood Council 