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Planners highlight transit-oriented development work to concentrate housing and services around high-frequency routes
Summary
Planning staff told the board the city is advancing transit-oriented development (TOD) strategy to concentrate mixed housing, services and jobs around high-frequency transit corridors and stations.
City planning staff briefed the board on transit-oriented development (TOD) efforts that aim to direct growth and mixed-use development around high-frequency transit corridors and station areas.
Planner Colin summarized historical context, noting Spokane’s streetcar-era growth and railroad hub legacy. He described a series of city efforts — a central-city line economic-impact analysis, a strategic overlay (2017), a TOD framework study (2020–22), the South Logan TOD plan and an ongoing Division Street TOD planning effort — as sequential steps to shape zoning, public investment and development concepts around transit.
Colin said the TOD process typically maps a walkable quarter-mile and a larger bike shed around stations, develops station-area concepts (mix of housing, commercial, jobs and services), and then adjusts zoning and other regulatory tools to enable the preferred development pattern and limit incompatible uses (for example, reconsidering allowance for drive‑throughs on corridors where mixed-use is desired).
Staff cited recent development outcomes near high-frequency routes (Monroe, Garland, downtown) that demonstrate private investment in mixed-use housing, and described recent city code changes that increased allowable height and reduced parking minimums in target centers and corridors to make projects more viable. Colin and staff said developer interviews identified financial incentives and visible public investment (streetscape and transit investment) as critical to changing market behavior and attracting redevelopment on corridors with many older, low-density parcels.
Board members asked about potential vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) impacts and how to overcome developers' preference for cheaper edge-of-city land; staff said future EIS work for Plan Spokane will analyze growth alternatives and VMT and pointed to state incentives (a 20-year multifamily tax exemption option tied to transit proximity) intended to improve project economics near stations.
Staff recommended continuing coordinated regulatory, financial and public-investment strategies to catalyze TOD on targeted corridors and to provide examples that demonstrate viability to private developers.
