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October Neighborhood Planning Workshop Recap

October Neighborhood Planning Workshop Recap

On behalf of the Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Planning committee, we’d like to give a big shout out to everyone who participated in last night’s important workshop!

WORKSHOP_PANO

We had a very spirited crowd of about 50 neighbors and a few business owners, who came together to contribute their unique perspective to creating the vision for our neighborhood and what issues need our attention to attain that vision! It was an incredibly valuable and inspiring evening, and we hope even more neighbors will plan on participating in the follow-up workshop on Thursday, November 14.

Our youngest planner
Our youngest planner in action!

We left the night with a healthy amount of data reflecting areas of the neighborhood in need of attention, and a strong voice to what our priorities should be as we move ahead with planning.

Beautification of North Monroe was a common theme, as was better support for alternative modes of transportation (including bus shelters and bike routes), incentives for desirable businesses to occupy currently vacant buildings, more neighborhood events and improved methods of crime prevention (such as better lighting, more organized Neighborhood Watch, and awareness training).

In collaboration with our planning firm, AHBL, and the City of Spokane, your planning committee will be hard at work organizing this data and preparing for our next workshop, which will focus on brainstorming and prioritizing solutions to the issues that were identified last night.

Please, plan on joining us and help us create a plan that is as representative of your voice and the voice of our neighborhood as possible!

Open House Tonight on Changes Downtown

Open House Tonight on Changes Downtown

The City of Spokane is inviting citizens to an open house this evening (Monday, August 19) to learn about changes planned for Post Street near City Hall and related projects that are expected to transform that area in west downtown along the Spokane River.

The open house will be held in the Chase Gallery in the lower level of City Hall, 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd [map] from 4:30 to 6pm. Staff also will brief the City Council on the projects during the council’s regular 6pm Monday night meeting in the adjacent Council Chambers.

The following projects and proposals will be discussed at the open house:

  • Post Street improvements. In the coming weeks, Post Street between Spokane Falls Boulevard and the Post Street Bridge will be converted to a one-way, northbound street. Additionally, North Lincoln Street from the Post Street Bridge north to Broadway Avenue will be converted to a three-lane street with parallel parking on both sides. The area will be more pedestrian friendly and provide a good link to a Centennial Trail extension through Veterans Park and Kendall Yards on the north side of the River. Parking in the area will increase through the addition of angled parking on Post and the changes on Lincoln Street. Post Street will be closed from Sept. 10 to Oct. 15 for work related to the changes.
  • Huntington Park and City Plaza improvements. Avista is working to upgrade its 3.8-acre Huntington Park area on the south side of the Spokane River between Post and Monroe streets and adjacent to the river’s lower falls. In addition, Avista is creating a new public plaza in what has been a small parking lot to the north of City Hall. The plaza will be gifted to the City of Spokane when complete as part of Avista’s 125th anniversary celebration in 2014. These projects are managed and paid for by Avista. The Post Street enhancement, which is a City project, will support this work, by increasing pedestrian access and calming traffic.
  • Riverfront Park Master Plan. The changes on Post and at Huntington Park will tie into work to create a new Master Plan for Riverfront Park. The Master Plan process is designed to guide plans for a major reinvestment in Riverfront Park as the 40th anniversary of Expo ’74 nears. More information on the master plan process can be found here.
  • Glover Field concept and Integrated Clean Water Plan. Additional investment also is being considered for this area. The City has developed conceptual plans for a tank in Glover Field in Peaceful Valley that would prevent flows from combined sewers from entering the Spokane River. The project would be part of a significant effort to improve the health of Spokane River and reduce stormwater and combined stormwater and wastewater from entering the River. The City’s goals for this work include gaining multiple public benefits when building infrastructure. For Glover Field, as a result, the City has developed a concept to improve the park and add a trail that would connect Huntington Park to Glover Field. Ultimately, this project could include a trail loop between Monroe Street and the Sandifur pedestrian bridge.

A fact sheet about the open house, the Post Street improvements, and the Avista work is available here.

Urban Farming Open House, July 30

Urban Farming Open House, July 30

The Spokane City Council and Planning and Development Services Department is hosting an Urban Farming Open House on Tuesday, July 30 from 5:30 to 7:30pm in Room 1A/1B of the Downtown Branch of the Spokane Public Library (906 W Main) [map].

The event was organized in response to increasing local interest in urban farming, which is gaining popularity throughout the country. Organizations like Project HOPE (the Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Council’s partner for the Emerson-Garfield Farmers’ Market), community gardens like the Emerson Community Garden, and The Father’s Table (a neighborhood small business) can all be considered part of the urban farming movement, not to mention private residences scattered throughout the neighborhood and indeed the city.

Urban Farming Open House Flyer

The City Council and the Planning Department are leading this effort to research, evaluate and develop a system to better support and provide regulations for urban farming. The goal is to get an ordinance passed by the end of the year.

The workshop will be for the purpose of discussing ideas and generating comments on possible changes to city code that could create a more consistent, predictable and streamlined system for urban farmers.

For more information, contact Tirrell Black at tblack@spokanecity.org or (509)-625-6185.

Status of N. Monroe Revitalization

Status of N. Monroe Revitalization

About two weeks ago, we made a request to have a written status update on North Monroe Revitalization, which, according to previous reports, was scheduled to break ground shortly.

On September 7, we received (via our appointed city rep, Tirrell Black) the following statement from Andrew Worlock, who is helping to oversee the N. Monroe revitalization project at the city level:

We are working on finalizing the contract with Studio Cascade. We have re-scoped the consultant’s work plan to provide a greater emphasis on economic development and identifying the public actions (infrastructure, etc) that are needed to stimulate private investment within and along the corridor. The approach uses a more refined focus given to three nodes along the corridor: a northern node, a “mid” node and a southern or “Northbank” node. We think this will mesh well with the neighborhood planning efforts of the EG Neighborhood as well as the other planning efforts (Kendall Yards, Spokane County) ongoing along the corridor. We hope to have the consultant under contract early this fall.

We’ll present this statement and discuss its impact at the neighborhood council meeting this week, which takes place on Wednesday, 7pm at the Corbin Senior Center.

What’s a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District?

What’s a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District?

Emerson-Garfield is part of Spokane’s West Quadrant Tax Increment Financing – or TIF – District. What exactly is a TIF district? And what does it have to do with our neighborhood?

Simply put, a TIF district is a pledge from Spokane city government that it will pay for projects that will upgrade neighborhoods using future property taxes. The idea is that such improvements will increase overall property values, especially properties located within the district, and thus increase Spokane’s overall property tax revenue.

Please note that simply being located within a TIF district does not automatically increase someone’s property taxes. Each property located within a TIF district continues to be assessed individually.

Spokane created the West Quadrant TIF District in 2007. It is one of three TIF districts created by city officials. The West Quadrant TIF District includes all of the Kendall Yards development being built on the bluff overlooking the Spokane River, part of the Riverside Neighborhood next to the river, much of the West Central Neighborhood, and Monroe St. within the West Central and Emerson-Garfield Neighborhoods.

In 2007, the West Quadrant TIF district had an assessed value of $198 million, which became the district’s base valuation.

The amount of property tax that has been collected within the district each year above the 2007 property tax collected is called a tax increment. Three-quarters of each year’s West Quadrant tax increment that isn’t specifically for schools and state government will be used as seed money for approved projects within the District.

One of those approved projects is the planned revitalization of the North Monroe business district from the bridge north to Cora St., which is the north boundary of the Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood.

Other approved TIF projects are the installation of streets, sewer lines and other infrastructure within the Kendall Yards development, the extension of the Centennial Trail west from Monroe St., continuing streetscape improvements along West Broadway Ave., and improvements to the Spokane County courthouse campus.

No one expects that there will be enough tax increment collected to be able to fully pay for any of these projects. Think of the increment rather as being seed money that will attract additional money from private and public funding sources for continuing improvements within TIF neighborhoods, including Emerson-Garfield.

The West Quadrant TIF district tax increment will be collected for 25 years, after which the district will be dissolved. The hope and expectation is that by the time the district goes away somewhere in the neighborhood of $4.5 million will have been collected and that will have gone a long way toward revitalizing our part of Spokane.

(This article was written by Emerson-Garfield resident John Vlahovich, who is chair of the West Quadrant TIF District Neighborhood Project Advisory Committee.)