City and County Policy Priorities

CITY OF SPOKANE

Housing & downtown development: Add 1,000 workforce and market rate residential units in downtown by 2028.

  • Adopt SB 6175, the office-to-residential conversion sales and use tax deferral.
  • Eliminate height restrictions along Spokane Falls Blvd. that hinder development of prominent opportunity sites.
  • Allocate on-street parking system net revenue to “maintain, improve and enhance the customer environment in those areas where parking revenue is generated within the City” as directed in SMC 07.08.130 § B.
  • Support implementation of Mayor Brown’s executive order establishing a “Rapid Response Team” to achieve efficiencies in the City Development Services Center through fiscal support and/or policy changes.
  • Avoid driving up the cost of building or managing housing by adding new taxes, fees, or regulations.
  • Assist in funding the update of the Downtown Housing Study.

Enhancing public spaces:

  • Improve alleys adjacent to the Parkade Plaza to Wall St and Washington, and Railroad Alley from Monroe to Adams through repaving, enhanced lighting, and improved solid waste infrastructure.
  • Revitalize downtown’s tree canopy with funding to maintain, repair and/or replace trees when necessary, connect irrigation systems and maintain tree wells.
  • Improve lighting and maintenance of railroad viaduct pedestrian underpasses, including enforcement of city ordinances and Code Enforcement emphasis with regular schedule of cleaning.

Homelessness:

  • Establish the Regional Homelessness Authority.
  • Ensure equitable distribution of any new stand-alone public restrooms, emergency shelters, social services, and no/low-barrier housing regionwide, with recognition of the over-concentration of facilities currently in downtown.
  • Support relocation of the House of Charity and Compassionate Addiction Treatment facilities outside of downtown.
  • Accelerate development of state-funded mental health and addiction treatment facilities at locations across the city.

Public Safety:

  • Support consistent enforcement of existing quality-of-life laws, including sit-and-lie, Proposition 1, open public drug use, and others.
  • Establish a High-Utilizer Initiative that identifies individuals with high impacts on the community with frequent touch points with public safety, justice system and emergency rooms (including frequent property crime offenders).

COUNTY PRIORITIES

  • Expand capacity in the County jail and stabilization facilities, inclusive of an Essential Public Facilities process to evaluate optimal sites for placement of a new County Jail.
  • Establish a High-Utilizer Initiative that identifies individuals with high impacts on the community with frequent touch points with public safety, justice system and emergency rooms (including frequent property crime offenders).
  • Enhance funding for mental health and behavioral health programs:
    • Expand availability of substance use/detox beds
    • Expand funding for SRHD’s fentanyl response programs
    • Accelerate development of state-funded mental health and addiction treatment facilities regionally.

FEDERAL PRIORITIES

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