Four the Future - December 22

Changes, and their regional ripple effects, in and around Riverfront Park.

• YWCA’s riverfront land sold for $3.2 million
  Source: Spokesman-Review; December 17, 2010
  Summary: The land on the north side of the river where the YWCA used to be has been sold to Lawrence Stone. The property overlooks the north channel of the river.
  Opinion: This property is situated north of Anthony’s, west of the pedestrian bridge to Riverfront Park’s Canada Island, east of the future Native American museum, and two blocks from the Arena. Any function there would be well advised to take advantage of the high community and tourist traffic. Perhaps a mix of retail and some professional offices with upper level residential to overlook the falls would be profitable. A quick jaunt over to Spokane’s site selector would help determine appropriate long term uses. By all means, however, make sure you have good public access along the top of the gorge so that people can easily travel through your property to get between the arena, bridge, museum, and restaurant. It will give you the opportunity to sell something to them on the way without having to supply them with a parking space.
  
• Beware Of Falling Trees-- City Removing 26 Trees From Riverfront Park
  Source: KHQ; December 17, 2010
  Summary: After Expo ’74, Riverfront Park was deliberately overplanted. Now, nearly 4 decades later, they are in the middle of their lifespan. Some are diseased and many are crowded. Thinning them will give the remaining trees the chance to reach their full potential. The trees will be used for mulch or given to SNAP or other charities to help low-income families heat their homes.
  Opinion: It’s important to maintain a mix of trees, both in species and age, so they don’t all die at the same time. Maintaining the mix sometimes means direct action. There are over 1000 trees in the park, so this is less than 3% of the trees. I wonder if anyone would notice if it weren’t mentioned.
  
• Commission: YMCA ineligible for historic listing
  Source: Spokesman-Review; December 16, 2010
  Summary: The Spokane City-County Historic Landmarks Commission voted unanimously to find the YMCA lacking in historic value. The YMCA is expected to be demolished in February.
  Opinion: My recent experience has taught me that this is the correct ruling. The Avista building on Mission has a similar architectural style, and the testimony tended to indicate that the YMCA building didn't have a significant role in Expo '74. Preserving this building for historic reasons isn’t the right path. Preserving it, or replacing it with another structure, for its usefulness in providing functionality to the park would be the right decision.
  
• Editorial: Natural area acquisitions suffer from YMCA deal
  Source: Spokesman-Review; December 12, 2010
  Summary: The hasty purchase of the YMCA building by the Park Board, followed by Spokane City Council's acceptance of Spokane County's offer to bailout the board, has placed a huge burden on the otherwise popular Conservations Futures program. Worthy lands are being offered to the public in lieu of inappropriate development, but they will not be protected because of the purchase of the YMCA, which has taken up approximately one third of all the costs of the program.
  Opinion: Not to mention the failure to keep the property as a useful contributor to the tax rolls. The sale of the YWCA land across the river shows that there is interest in making the property work, and Mark Pinch's offer to keep the land along the river open to the public shows he understood this property's correct role. In the end, this property has been wasted, and the result will be additional sprawl on the lands not preserved by the program.
  

Four the Future - September 3

Today: Conservation Futures, public safety with a sunny disposition, and energy efficiency projections.

• Proposed park could preserve LL-area hillside
  Source: Liberty Lake Splash; August 18, 2010
  Summary: The failure of the Marshall Chesrown's Legacy Ridge development has left the property in the hands of AmericanWest Bank. The bank has proposed that it be sold to the county through the Conservation Futures program for $2.6 million. It could include a trail system over the hillside between Liberty Lake and Saltese Flats.
  
  
  
  Opinion: Full disclosure: as a city councilmember for Liberty Lake, I lobbied to deny this area’s entry into the urban growth area (which would have allowed it to be developed), and that effort was successful. So, I’m naturally drawn to making it a protected area and preventing it from being developed. County Commissioner Mark Richard even came to Liberty Lake to threaten the city with legal action if we didn’t support bringing it in. So, to have Commissioner Richard making the decision? I seriously doubt it will be protected. On the other hand, this next story indicates it’s unlikely to happen anyway....
• Open space designation fields many nominees in county
  Source: Spokesman-Review; September 2, 2010
  Summary: Thirty-six parcels have been nominated to be acquired by Spokane County under the Conservation Futures program. Conservation Futures is funded through a special property tax dedicated to the purchase and preservation of threatened open spaces. The Spokesman-Review web site is making a map and specific parcel list available.
  Opinion: According to purpose of the Conservation Futures program is to "maintain, preserve, conserve and otherwise continue in existence adequate open space lands for the production of food, fiber and forest crops, and to assure the use and enjoyment of natural resources and scenic beauty." The county maintains a statement and park locator. The fact that there are some worthwhile properties available which exceed the available annual funding is more proof that the purchase of the YMCA building in Riverfront Park was unwise. And this unfortunate funding restriction will persist for 20 years unless the park property is repurchased using unrestricted funds and Conservation Futures is refunded.
• Solar panels provide backup power for Liberty Lake police
  Source: Spokesman-Review; September 2, 2010
  Summary: The City of Liberty Lake has installed 60 solar panels on the roof of the police station/library building. The police department has a bank of batteries which can power its servers and communications equipment. The solar panels will keep the batteries available for up to 72 hours during a power outage. During normal operation, the solar panels will reduce the amount of energy purchased from Avista. Excess power will be sold back to Avista.
  Opinion: Proof that sustainability and resilience are two sides of the same coin. People who are opposed to sustainability: please explain how losing data access and communications is good for public safety.
• Doing More While Using Less Power
  Source: New York Times; September 1, 2010
  Summary: Energy efficiency is not the same as energy conservation. With conservation, you make do with less. Efficiency means that you can do more with what you already have. Appliances have become more efficient—like refrigerators have, on average become 4% more efficient each year since the 70’s, yet are larger. Light duty vehicles could double their efficiency by 2035. Buildings could use 60% less energy by installing present technologies. One researcher says that the United States could reduce its projected energy needs by 88 percent by 2050.
  Opinion: Reduce by 88 percent. No, I checked. That’s not a typo. As is observed in the article, this is easy stuff but industry seems to be "utterly uninterested." Yes, it can take upfront investment, but what doesn’t? And with up to 40 percent return on investment, there is a serious disconnect here. Perhaps Mayor Newsom’s building efficiency audits would help. It might even help more if the stockholders were informed of ways to make those kinds of margins. Or, better yet, disinvest in poorly performing companies and invest in businesses (and regions) which are more efficient and better prepared to succeed in tight markets.

Four the future - December 13

Access to Antoine Peak, Waste-to-Jobs, Spokane County jail, and inclusionary housing.

• Access still limited to Antoine Peak
  Source: Spokesman, 091213
  Summary: While Spokane County has received grant funding for Antoine Peak, access is still limited because a third and critical piece of the property acquisition has not been made.
  Opinion: With the arrival of the grant monies, purchase of this final piece is easier. And if Spokane County withdraws the mind-boggling offer to purchase the YMCA, they'll save an immense amount of money for appropriate uses, like acquiring this third parcel.


• Watching their waste
  Source: Spokesman, 091213
  Summary: Odessa Public Development Authority is developing a bio-digester at Fishtrap. In digesting 75,000 tons of waste, it will create fertilizer, generate enough electricity for 1,000 homes, and become Lincoln County's largest employer with 75 new jobs.
  Opinion: A great idea to deal with some of Spokane County's waste issues, but let's make sure there are no pathogens making it all the way into the resulting fertilizer. Good on Odessa PDA to look outside the box in being willing to place a site closer to Sprague than Odessa. With a little less provincialism everywhere, we'd all benefit with a little help from our friends. And look at that: Lincoln County's largest employer will be part of the green collar economy.


• Jail query: not where, why
  Source: Spokesman, 091213
  Summary: A letter writer tells her experience about how a public hearing about the new jail facility turned from where should the facility be built to why should it be built, and brings facts to bear.
  Opinion: An excellent question: what is it about this "family friendly" community that requires so much jail time? The fact is that the county commissioners already picked a site, the best one, too, but the two Republicans on the board don't have the courage to stick to their decision. Beware Knezovich's recurring bids to create his own little kingdom out on the west plains.


• Controversy surrounds Bellingham plan to require low-income housing
  Source: The Bellingham Herald, 091213
  Summary: The Bellingham City Council unanimously required a development to include 10% of the housing to be affordable to families making 80% of the Whatcom County median household income. There is disagreement over the appropriate method of ensuring the presence of affordable housing in an area. In Bellingham almost one-quarter of the cost of building a home is fees and sales taxes.
  Opinion: The fees argument is a red herring: who would live in a house that doesn't have access to roads, sewer, water, or schools? Or will fall down because it's uninspected? The question is: how do we ensure that there is a connection between the incomes in a community and the available housing stock. There are two ways: increase incomes for the least paid, or require that if incomes are low that there is housing stock available. Since there are so many people in leadership positions in this nation who hold the opinion that paying people well for their work is harmful to the economy (which is ridiculous because paying people IS the economy), the second must be pursued. What we need is to view affordable housing as a commodity, and create a market for it. Require all development to include a percentage of housing, including rentals, to be affordable, the percentage adjusted to the need in the region. Then, allow developers to transfer this requirement, if they wish, to other developers who would like to take advantage of government assistance. With protections to prevent affordable housing from being moved out of the local area and to prevent high concentrations of low income housing, a market is formed which is flexible and meets the needs of the region.

Four the future - December 7

After only one day, I've decided to change the format. If I wait for a full week, the list will be too long and you won't want to go through them. So, let's try this: "Four" the future...a list of four stories related to planning. Yeah, it's cheesy. I like cheese, so sue me.

• EPA moving to regulate greenhouse gas emissions
  Source: Spokesman-Review, 091208
  Summary: The Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate pollutants, such as CO₂, and may do so without the need for additional legislation.
  Opinion: The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for this act during the Bush administration when it told a reluctant EPA that it had authority to do so. It would be a bold move, and one that may raise the ire of congressional Republicans, and some "blue dog" Democrats.


• Grant to offset Antoine costs
  Source: Spokesman-Review, 091208
  Summary: A State of Washington grant reimbursed Spokane County for about half the cost of the purchase of Antoine Peak.
  Opinion: If the County wants to reduce its budget woes while increasing the amount of money it receives from state grants, it could get serious about the Conservation Futures program by instituting an open space impact fee so that as the region grows, we can preserve a proportional amount of land from suburban sprawl.


• Shuttles are green in deed
  Source: Spokesman-Review, 091209
  Summary: Diesel-electric hybrid buses replacing the downtown trolleys were purchased as a result of a cost analysis--maintenance costs are only 11 cents per mile, as opposed to standard diesel buses at 65 cents per mile.
  Opinion: One of the side effects of Washington's statutory division between capital and operational costs is that it is rare that jurisdictions are willing to pay more for capital costs which reduce operational costs. Spokane Transit is to be commended for this move. Now, if only they would apply that to the rail discussion. (And Spokane County for its confinement facility.)


• What Would Jane Say?
  Source: Inlander, 091210
  Summary: Jan Jacobs, the highly respected urban economist, would not approve of the choices being made with regards to the YMCA building at Riverfront Park. Robert Herold, the author of this opinion piece, points out that more open space will not make Riverfront Park better, just bigger.
  Opinion: Herold is correct. Riverfront Park is beginning to be too diluted with a lack of demand attractions. We must bring in more retail and entertainment activities to the park, thereby increasing the number of reasons for people go there. A lively park is economically useful and safer. Making even more dark spaces at night is just inviting inappropriate activities into our regional urban park. Use the Conservation Futures money for its intended purpose, and rescue Riverfront Park at the same time.