Spokane City Planning offers more housing changes in 2023

Spokane Assistant Planner Tim Thompson unveiled his teams plans to the Spokane REALTORS Governmental Affairs Committee that call for more opportunities and changes to the building codes in Spokane.

READ THE FULL PRESENTATION HERE

The goal, as first outlined in a workshop of the Spokane Planning Commission is to increase home construction and housing variety within city limits. These changes are in addition to those already made under the city’s BOCA Intiative.

Among the proposed changes:

• Reducing setbacks from 15′ to 10′
• Increasing the maximum footprint for homes to 2.450 sq ft (lots under 7,000 square feet), and 35% of lot size over 7,000 sq ft
• Under R2 zoning allowing up to 80% of building footprint
• Projects over 2 acres must have three or more housing types – and only 70% of any single housing type

In August, the City launched a new Middle Housing Support Team within the Planning Department to better help builders and developers understand all these new rule changes. This move comes on the heels of a wide range of zoning changes passed under the Building Opportunities and Choices for All pilot project, that could become a permanent part of the City’s Comprehensive Plan. more details will be released in the weeks ahead.

A hearing for these permanent changes has been set for November 6th.