The city of Spokane Valley has taken the first steps toward dismantling its Sprague-Appleway Revitalization Plan, which was envisioned to attract development by cultivating a city center.

The plan, known as SARP, which was written over six years at a cost of more than $1 million, was designed to encourage pedestrian-friendly downtown-style development with a blend of retail, office, and residential uses along the Sprague-Appleway corridor.

SARP was approved in October 2009. The following month, city voters elected five anti-SARP candidates, including Mayor Tom Towey, to the City Council.

The new council has declared an economic emergency and has sent to the city's planning commission a request to change the city-center type of zoning in the University City area to mixed use, Towey says. It also has asked the commission to consider removing SARP altogether from the city's comprehensive land-use plan.

Despite the new council's recent actions, the mayor declines to declare SARP dead—yet.

"We sent that question to the planning commission, and they will have a public hearing on it," he says. "It all depends on a lot of things from the planning commission, public input, and the City Council."

The planning commission was scheduled to hold its first workshop today, Nov. 18, on the emergency zoning amendment to replace the city-center zoning with mixed-use zoning. Towey expects a recommendation on the amendment in early 2011, and a recommendation on amending the comprehensive plan to pre-SARP zoning in the spring.

Scott Kuhta, the city's senior planner, says, "Ultimately, if the council decides to rescind SARP, it will revert back to 2007 zoning."

Dick Behm, owner of Behm's Valley Creamery, at 9405 E. Sprague, says he doesn't want to see SARP eliminated.

Behm says that following heavy scrutiny by the business community and scores of recommendations and modifications when it was being developed, SARP gained support of the Spokane Valley Business Association and the Greater Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce.

"Private enterprise needs a plan to follow," Behm says. "Everyone needs to know what's in store."

Behm questions whether the new council really has a mandate to rescind SARP.

A survey conducted by Clearwater Research in 2004 indicated that nearly two-thirds of the Valley residents who responded felt that a downtown was important, and more than half of those respondents thought that the city center should be in the University City area, he says.

Critics, however, say SARP is too restrictive to attract development.

Spokane land-use consultant Dwight Hume says none of the owners of 18 properties he represents in the Sprague-Appleway corridor support SARP.

City design criteria require that new buildings be constructed close to sidewalks and that parking areas be beside or behind buildings in some sections of the Sprague-Appleway corridor, and such restrictions likely will drive development away, Hume says.

Marshall Clark, a Spokane-area commercial real estate developer and broker, says restrictive zoning isn't the answer to an oversupply of retail space. "All they have to do is allow multiple uses," Clark says.

He says retail space often is suitable for office and service use. "I've put everything but retail tenants in retail space," Clark says. "That's normal in a down cycle."

Rich Munson, who was Spokane Valley mayor when the City Council approved SARP, says Sprague Avenue businesses haven't had an up cycle in recent memory.

"From 2001 through 2008, while property values everywhere else in Spokane Valley were going up, Sprague Avenue values were constant or down, and rent fell 40 percent during that period," Munson says.

He says no one opposes free enterprise, but he contends that development in the city needs guidance.

"One of the jobs of city government is to provide a basic framework for development within a city," Munson says. "If you look at what Sprague had before, it wasn't working. It's a shame to move forward with something proven not to be successful," he says of the movement to return to previous zoning regulations.

It's no coincidence that the Sprague-Appleway corridor has declined since it was made into a one-way couplet in 2001, says Behm, whose creamery is in a retail center he owns on Sprague Avenue, about three blocks east of Argonne.

Behm claims that property values and business activity fell 40 percent along the Sprague-Appleway corridor after the couplet was created, and he says neither ever has recovered.

"It's not just property owners that are affected, but owners and employees of all of those businesses," he says.

SARP calls for a 1-mile section of the Sprague-Appleway couplet between Mullan and University roads to return to two-way traffic, leaving one-way traffic on the section of the couplet most heavily used by commuters between the Sprague-Interstate 90 interchange and Mullan.

SARP designates the University City area as a city center, and prior to the 2009 election, the city had been negotiating with University City Shopping Center owner James Magnuson to buy a portion of the mall property for a city hall. Due to economic uncertainty and an anti-tax climate, however, the new council has decided not to pursue such a purchase, Towey says.

With no development plans on the horizon, Magnuson also has asked the city to rezone some of the University City property to mixed use to allow part of it to be used by an auto dealership, a use not allowed under the city-center zoning.

"With the current economic context and the current zoning on the subject parcel, nothing can be developed in the foreseeable future," Magnuson wrote in a letter to Mayor Towey.

Following that request, the council declared an economic emergency and started the process to lift the city-center zoning and replace it with a mixed-use zoning designation, Towey says.

Munson contends that situation doesn't meet the definition of economic emergency. "Someone wants to set up a car lot," he says. "What's the citywide emergency?"

Regardless of the future of SARP, the current council eventually will have to decide whether the city needs a permanent city hall, Towey says.

The city government currently occupies 28,000 square feet of leased space in two buildings in the Redwood Plaza, at 11707 E. Sprague.

"The question is whether we want to stay here and pay rent or move into our own facility," Towey says.

Towey says he doubts, however, that a permanent city hall will be in the University City area—at least not any time soon. "I don't see any way that could happen," he says.

Towey says he wants to see recommendations from the planning commission and hear public comments before he speculates further on the potential elimination of SARP.

Munson, however, says he wonders whether most council members already haven't made up their minds.

"The planning commission basically is the same one that recommended SARP in the first place," Munson says. "The council could choose to ignore it."