SpoVal is looking to make opioids extra illegal

Welcome to CIVICS, where we break down the week’s municipal meetings throughout the Inland Northwest, so you can keep track of and fight for the issues you care about.

Here are highlights of what’s coming up:

SpoVal is looking to establish criminal penalties for exposing another person to controlled substances, an expanded version of an ordinance they previously considered that would have just protected kids or vulnerable adults.

The Spokane Regional Transportation Council is divvying out millions in funding for transportation projects across the region, and some of your favorites might be getting funded!

As it sits, Spokane is not projected to have enough affordable housing to meet population needs by 2046. What will the city do about it? Tune into the Plan Commission to find out.

Keep reading the words “transit-oriented development,” and feeling confused? The Spokane City Climate Resilience and Sustainability Board is getting a crash course on the concept, and you can too, by watching the meeting!

Important meetings this week:

Spokane City Council

/5 peppers

The July 7 meeting is cancelled

Next week’s sneak peek:

The council is set to vote on Special Budget Ordinances to accept grants and add them to the biennial budget, plus spend $730,000 of the opioid settlement dollars on “contractual services.” Contractual services for what, you may ask? Great question. No additional information was included.
A vote on an ordinance to prohibit new housing developments receiving the city’s Multi-Family Tax Exemption credit from operating units in the building as short-term rentals (think Airbnb). This is intended to ensure projects receiving the tax credit are actually contributing in the long term to the region’s housing supply.
A vote on the deferred ordinance to create a simplified civil infraction system.
A first read on the ordinance to update the city’s old Complete Streets ordinance.

Spokane Plan Commission

🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Too much unaffordable housing, not enough affordable housing

The results are in and they’re not looking good: Spokane will not have enough affordable housing units to accommodate estimated population growth by 2046 (that would be just over 20 years from now, but that doesn’t mean we have enough affordable housing as it stands now either). The report, prepared by a senior city planner, was a necessary step in updating the Comprehensive Plan and meeting the requirements of both the Growth Management Act and House Bill 1220.

The analysis found that the city is projected to fall short of housing for people in the 0-80% Area Median Income (AMI) bracket — which is any household making less than $72,600 — by 4,365 units. At the same time, the city is projected to have an excess capacity of almost 13,000 units for people making more than $72,600.

“To comply with the requirements of House Bill 1220, the City must consider, as part of the overall Comprehensive Plan Periodic Update, actions sufficient to raise the capacity in the 0-80%AMI bracket by nearly 4,400 units,” the report reads.

The Plan Commission is set to discuss these results in depth on Wednesday, and you can review the full plan starting on page 24 of this document.

Agenda here
Wednesday, June 9 at 2 pm
Council Briefing Center
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane City Climate Resilience and Sustainability Board

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers for global warming, 🌶️/5 peppers for the actual meeting content

A crash course in transit-oriented development

You may have seen the phrase “transit-oriented development,” in past editions of CIVICS. If that term is word salad to you, you can tune in to the Spokane City Climate Resilience and Sustainability Board for a crash course — TransitOriented Development 101, the agenda says. Staff will present an overview of transit oriented development work conducted to date, answer questions like “What could transit-oriented development look like in Spokane?” and “What land use and zoning tools would support this type of development?”

Agenda here
Thursday, July 10 at 2 pm
Council Briefing Center in the Lower Level of City Hall.
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane Regional Transportation Council

🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Funding announcement for street projects

For all you urbanist/city planner types who have been watching municipal budgets and funding announcements like a hawk to see if your pet project has the money to get completed soon (looking at you, Lauren), the Spokane Regional Transportation Council has a big update. At this week’s meeting, they’re announcing the projects slated for 2027 through 2029 that they’re awarding funding to, and we got a sneak peek in the agenda docs. Here’s the highlights:

Division Street Active Transportation Projects were fully funded at $2,102,926, which means Division Street could finally start to get a whole lot friendlier for pedestrians. Sorry, Larry Stone.
The Latah Bridge has the funds now to start thinking about getting fixed up, as the design element of the rehabilitation was fully funded at $2,780,000. However, you can’t get too excited; the project in its entirety is slated to cost around $65 million.
Phase 2 of connecting Fish Lake Trail to the Centennial Trail was partially funded at $4,705,203 of the requested $5 million+.
Do you like the Spokane City Line? Spokane Transit Authority is in the process of looking at similar high performance transit on Wellesley, and the design and engineering for that project was fully funded by SRTC for $630,000.

For those of you who want to peruse the whole list of fully and partially funded projects, it can be found here, starting on page 24.

Agenda here
Thursday, July 10 at 1 pm
Spokane Regional Transportation Office
21 W Riverside Ave, Suite 504, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane Valley City Council

🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

Proposed substance abuse ordinance expanded

The city council is set for a second reading on its proposed new law governing punishment for “reckless endangerment with a controlled substance,” which is when someone exposes another person to a controlled substance. The previous ordinance would have made it a crime to expose a child or a dependent adult — a person older than 18 who needs special assistance with daily life — to controlled substances. The new ordinance makes it a crime to expose “all people” to opioids and establishes a minimum sentence of 90 days in jail and a maximum of 364 days and allows the city to fine offenders $5,000. The agenda sheet says the law is needed because existing state law does not specifically mention opioids among the controlled substances it bars people from exposing others to.