Opinion: Bad city process promises a bad decision
Tonight the City Council will make a bad decision. Tonight, City Council is being asked to annex portions of Blackwell Island, Lake Coeur d’Alene and the Spokane River and will make a bad decision because they must follow a bad process. It is a bad process because the Planning Department has already granted a PUD (Planned Unit Development) for some of this property before it is even in the City and if the Council annexes the property it comes into the City subject to the terms of the PUD. (Strange that the Planning Commission, which is not elected, determines the future of a property that is not even in the City.) Council will probably tell you they cannot discuss the PUD because it was not appealed and they will simply be looking at the annexation request.
But there are some problems with this annexation request and the PUD combination. The Annexation request includes portions of the Lake and Spokane River (there are good reasons for this) and the PUD grants the Marina Yacht Club, LLC, which owns the land, the authority to count some of the water as part of the minimum open space requirement of a PUD. Does this mean that future development on the Lake and River can use the water, which is already public, as part of the open space required for development? If so we face the possibility of solid concrete and buildings along the shore from Riverstone to Mill River as well as on the south shore of the River when that property is developed in the City.
The process is flawed because development happens contrary to the dreams and plans of the public and their elected City Councils. Two examples of this are the Mill River PUD and the Bellerive PUD. The Mill River annexation agreement had a requirement for the developer to build a bike/pedestrian path along the River for the length of the development. The process of approval of the PUD and buildout did not enforce this dream of continuous public space along the River. Bellerive had an open space requirement that was ignored as buildout occurred and we have wall to wall development with no open space. The City has done a good job of incorporating our dreams in the comprehensive plans, master plans, zoning regulations, resolutions and annexation agreements but they are ignored by City staff in the process of development and buildout.
Council cannot make a good decision regarding this annexation agreement: To approve it ignores the question of public water being counted as open space and the PUD’s waiving the City’s Shoreline Regulations; to deny it would deny what is probably a pretty good development for the City.
The good decision that Council can make is to direct the City Administrator to come up with a process that insures that the dreams of Coeur d’Alene that are included in the comprehensive plans, master plans, zoning regulations, resolutions and annexation agreements match what is finally built on the ground. A good first step would be to create a unique zone along the river (River District) that would require coordinated river centric planning and development.
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Chet Gaede is a Coeur d'Alene resident and Friend of the Spokane River Corridor.