Spokane Valley staff present land-capacity analysis; current zoning shows shortfall against state allocation

City planning staff presented a land-capacity analysis and the start of the comprehensive-plan update process to the Spokane Valley Planning Commission, describing the exercise required under the Washington Growth Management Act and the next steps for code and element updates.

The presenter (identified in the meeting as Tony) said the county-level population projection used in the analysis is from the Office of Financial Management and showed an estimated county population of roughly 255,000 by the 20-year horizon used for the comp plan. Staff reported Spokane Valley's assigned allocation from the county was approximately 21,000 people, and the city's housing allocation figure shown in the presentation was 16,661 housing units. Tony said the land-capacity methodology uses vacant and underutilized land,…