City planning staff previewed Plan Spokane 2046 and its draft environmental impact statement (EIS) at the Urban Experience Committee, urging public review as part of the periodic comprehensive-plan update.

"Plan Spokane 2046 is our required periodic update to the city's comprehensive plan," the planner said, noting the update integrates housing and climate policies and represents the largest update since the Growth Management Act adoption. Staff said they plan for a 20-year horizon and to perform a development-code rewrite tied to the comprehensive-plan updates.

Staff announced the draft EIS is available online and described a story map that compares growth alternatives. The draft EIS was published Dec. 18, 2025; staff said the EIS comment period closes at 5 p.m. on Feb. 18, 2026 and that comments specific to EIS chapters must be submitted within that window to planspokane@spokanecity.org or by mail.

The planner summarized two growth alternatives analyzed in the EIS: a "distributed and balanced" alternative emphasizing transit-oriented development and a "center city and employment hubs" alternative concentrating growth downtown and in employment centers including Hilliard and the West Plains. The EIS examines impacts on existing land use and zoning, infrastructure, transportation systems, the natural environment and utilities.

Staff said they recorded about 3,400 community responses in 2025 across surveys and events and have posted seven draft chapters reviewed by the planning commission. They also called out listening hours, a recorded "lunch and learn" and upcoming council study sessions late February and monthly thereafter to enable deeper review.

A council member asked which sections of the EIS reviewers should focus on; staff advised focusing comments on chapters within the EIS during the open comment period and noted the utility of the story map to compare alternatives.

Next steps include continued community engagement, study sessions with council and the development-code modernization effort that will follow the comprehensive-plan adoption.