Spokane County staff outline neighborhood zoning rewrite; builders and Habitat push for by‑right middle housing

Spokane County planning staff presented a draft reorganization of the county’s development code to replace legacy LDR/MDR/HDR categories with a neighborhood‑focused framework — Neighborhood Residential 1 (NR1), Neighborhood Residential 2 (NR2), Neighborhood Business and Regional Commercial — intended to encourage walkable, mixed‑use villages.

Scott (county planning director) told the commission the proposal emphasizes design, massing and connectivity over strict use separation. NR1 would function as an infill zone that largely restates current low/medium density allowances, while NR2 is intended for larger master‑planned or redevelopment sites and would explicitly permit a wider mix of residential types and neighborhood‑scale retail.

During the open comment period, retired homebuilder Jim Frank said the vision is sound but the draft’s dimensional and minimum‑lot rules risk blocking the very middle‑housing products planners seek to enable. “If you want to integrate into a neighborhood, these units need to be smaller. You have to regulate mass and scale of the buildings, not the use,” Frank said, urging elimination of minimum lot sizes and easier subdivision by right for cottage clusters, townhomes and small multifamily buildings.

Dana Loy, director of government affairs for Habitat for Humanity Spokane, echoed that call and asked planners to allow six‑plexes in NR1/NR2, remove mandatory public‑street frontage for clustered cottage developments, and avoid substituting costly PUD or unit‑lot processes that raise holding costs and financing hurdles for ownership‑oriented builders.

Developers and a local builder in the audience said project economics are sensitive to lot and permitting rules, and that removing restrictive lot‑size minimums and simplifying the short‑plat/subdivision process would materially increase the feasibility of lower‑cost for‑sale housing products.

Staff said the draft is an initial proposal and that the county is already engaging homebuilders and other stakeholders to refine dimensional standards, connectivity requirements and public‑works coordination; county Public Works is also updating road standards to match neighborhood street configurations where fiscally feasible.

Next steps: staff will continue stakeholder meetings, refine draft code language and present revisions at future Plan Commission meetings; the steering committee and Board of County Commissioners will review housing allocation policy and ownership targets in June.