Spokane County lays out placemaking vision as EIS scoping for 2026 comp plan update begins

Spokane County planners and their consultants on Wednesday presented a placemaking-focused approach to the county’s 2026 comprehensive plan update and said the Environmental Impact Statement scoping process is under way.

County staff described a set of six policy priorities — integrated environmental design and resilience, street connectivity, trails and park integration, streetscape design, neighborhood design and a broader land-use-category consolidation — that they say will guide updates to the county’s future land‑use map and implementing development code.

The discussion matters because the county must show how it will accommodate projected growth while complying with the Growth Management Act and coordinating capital facilities, transportation and service delivery, planners said. "The county has to plan for roughly 30,000 new residents in its unincorporated urban growth areas," a county staff member told the meeting, and the EIS scoping process is intended to analyze alternatives and their infrastructure implications.

Consultants from Makers and Cassidy Consulting Group laid out examples and code concepts intended to produce walkable, mixed‑use neighborhood patterns rather than disconnected subdivisions. Bob Bangford, partner at Makers, read a draft placemaking vision that said suburban lands should “feature integrated parks, trails, natural areas, and civic gathering places, a mix of housing and pedestrian‑oriented neighborhood centers” and be resilient by integrating natural features as community amenities.

Planners and consultants described several regulatory ideas to translate those goals into on‑the‑ground results: trail requirements scaled to subdivision perimeter, a park‑edge standard that requires visibility and dwelling units facing at least 60% of a park’s perimeter, street‑type standards that limit pavement widths and mandate street trees and planting strips, and a tighter, more form‑oriented land‑use category structure to replace a long list of existing categories.

They also said the county will prepare alternatives for the EIS on which the Board of County Commissioners will take policy direction. "The scoping meeting is next Wednesday, the seventh," a county presenter said, and the comment period for the scoping process "runs through May 30." The presenters advised attendees to review the posters and submit preferences via the boards and the county project website.

Residents and workshop participants asked detailed questions about how the concepts would apply locally, citing examples they said showed poor integration of higher‑density housing with nearby parks and streets. The presenters stressed that the illustrations were conceptual examples, not site‑specific proposals. "It's not a specific proposal for any place," one consultant said when attendees raised concerns about particular images.

Planners said the comp plan update will be followed by code changes where needed; they emphasized that a plan alone does not implement outcomes without explicit development regulations and enforcement. "A plan is useless unless you've got code and investment decisions that are consistent with it," a county staff member said.

Next steps announced to meeting attendees included the EIS scoping meeting and additional rural open houses focused on rural character and agricultural preservation; participants were invited to provide sticker‑dot feedback on the placemaking posters and sign up for project updates on the county website.