Hearing on the Comprehensive Plan Update
Monday, June 19 at 6 pm, in City Hall Council Chambers
On Monday, the City of Spokane is updating a crucial guiding document. We have concerns.
Why is this important? The Comprehensive Plan is important because it directs where the City builds, how we travel and what we want our city to look like. It is also the place where we set attitudes and expectations about what we value as a city, what infrastructure and programs we invest in and who is responsible for maintaining them.
* Roadways of Significance: (Chapter 4 p. 64-65.) This new provision in the Comprehensive Plan creates a giant loophole in Spokane’s citizen generated and hard won Complete Streets Ordinance, which PJALS supported, which ensures that our city’s transportation projects will serve people of all ages, abilities incomes and transportation modes, that allows “special” projects to circumvent the city’s rigorous project prioritization process. Ask City Council to limit the use of this tactic to once per Six Year Street Plan and require that the required Complete Streets features be scoped into the project for a later buildout. (For more information contact [email protected] or 509-838-1965.)
* Plan for Healthy Local Food: (Chapter 10) This comprehensive plan update missed an opportunity. Ask City Council to make it a priority in the Joint Strategic Plan to work with the Spokane Food Policy Council to create a food plan addressing food access, food deserts, greater opportunity for our burgeoning local food economy and farmland preservation. The implementation strategy matrix is a first step that needs to be further shaped as soon as possible and added as an annual comprehensive plan amendment.
* Plan for Smart Justice: (Chapter 10). For the first time in Spokane, the updates to the comprehensive plan includes as a goal criminal justice reform. The Social Health Chapter now includes goals related to smart justice, reentry, and rehabilitation. This includes expanding use of therapeutic and community courts, diversion programs, reducing racial disparities throughout the criminal justice system, and reducing disparities for people with mental and cognitive disabilities. Ask City Council to pass these sections to make clear that Spokane is committed to smart justice reforms to our criminal justice system that focus on the recovery and reintegration of justice-involved people to create a strong, healthy, and just community that foster racial equity and opportunities for restoration. (For more information contact [email protected] or 509-835-5211.)
The full Comprehensive Plan Update is available here: https://my.spokanecity.org/shapingspokane/draft-plan/
Please let City Council know that you support access to fresh healthy food, smart justice, and Complete Streets by attending the hearing on Monday or contacting City Council before Monday and/or encouraging your members to do so.
How to contact City Council: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] or 509.625.6255