Plan Commission reviews Spokane 2046 land‑use strategy and 'urban hubs' concept; council dissolves Design Review Commission

City planning staff on Feb. 11 updated the Spokane Plan Commission on the draft Spokane 2046 land use chapter and introduced a new urban hubs approach meant to concentrate future mixed‑use growth and public investment.

The presentation, delivered during a workshop session, described five strategic focus areas — infill development, transit‑oriented development, mixed‑use urban hubs (the update to centers and corridors), neighborhood‑scale retail and housing — and emphasized that these are policy‑level concepts meant to guide later zoning and code work. "Policy informs decisions, it guides decisions, but it doesn't make the decision," the presenter said, stressing that specific standards and detailed regulations will come later through the Build Spokane code update.

Staff said the hub concept is intended to identify places where the city would expect a higher level of design and a greater mix of uses. In those areas, design requirements would likely be more stringent for how buildings relate to the street and to pedestrians, and the comp plan would show these as future‑looking mixed‑use land uses rather than immediate code changes. Staff noted the land use map will be a "future land use" map and that hub boundaries could extend beyond previous center footprints; they also described showing "key intersections" and "spokes" to help convey hub shape while keeping the map intentionally general.

Commissioners pressed staff on several practical issues: how hubs will be identified, whether designating an area a hub risks increasing auto trips or changing neighborhood character, and how to translate aspirational policy into workable zoning. A commissioner pointed to transit mode‑share projections and asked whether the city can realistically shift driving behavior; staff replied that clear values in the comp plan plus follow‑through in the code are essential to realize hub goals.

Staff said public engagement has been substantial — on the order of several thousand contact points — and that local examples such as South Perry, North Monroe and Kendall Yards help illustrate the sort of walkable, mixed environments the strategy intends to sustain or encourage. The presentation also framed mixed use as both horizontal and vertical, noting that horizontal mixed use (adjacent complementary uses) is often easier to achieve than requiring retail under residential in every new building.

On administrative changes, staff reported that the city council adopted an action on Monday dissolving the standalone Design Review Commission and shifting design review responsibilities to the Plan Commission, which will convene ad‑hoc design review subcommittees composed of plan commissioners and invited design professionals in response to applications. Staff said the change was prompted by a sharp drop in design review applications in recent years (staff referenced a prior typical caseload of roughly 10–15 applications a year, compared with only one design review meeting last year).

Staff told commissioners they expect to adopt the comp plan policies and then work closely with Build Spokane to translate values into zoning tools and design standards, with some items adopted together when feasible and others staggered by practical sequencing. The Plan Commission’s land use subcommittee will work on refined descriptions and the preferred alternative that will guide where mixed‑use designations appear on the future land use map.

The workshop closed with staff reiterating the plan’s aspirational purpose and the need for later, careful translation into code and investment priorities, and commissioners thanked staff for the detailed discussion and indicated they would continue refining the language in subcommittee and future meetings.