Out of the Box
Published on July 25, 2008
Center’s lawyers team up with Futurewise and neighborhood groups to fight Spokane’s Southgate “Big Box” decision.
The Center for Justice is signing on as co-counsel with lawyers from the state-wide citizen group Futurewise to help challenge the City of Spokane’s recently adopted “Southgate Amendments.” 
The challenge will be in the form of a petition for review to the Eastern Washington Growth Management Hearings Board and is being filed on behalf of the Southgate Neighborhood Council, the Neighborhood Alliance of Spokane County, Ginger Patano, and Futurewise. Ginger Patano is the vice chair of the Southgate Neighborhood Council.
“This case is really about a neighborhood’s right to plan its future–how it grows, how it preserves local businesses, and what voice local citizens have,” says CFJ attorney Rick Eichstaedt. “The city had a clear obligation to conduct neighborhood planning before taking the action and instead chose to ignore it to accomodate a small number of irresponsible developers. This flies in the face of our comprehensive plan and the intent of the state’s Growth Management Act.”
Site of the Southgate controversy on South Regal
The city’s controversial decision to pave the way for additional “big box” development on South Regal has been the subject of two recent in-depth articles by Kevin Taylor of the Pacific Northwest Inlander, “Boxing Match,” published June 12th, and “Planning for the Big Picture,” published June 26th. The story about Mayor Mary Verner’s decision to allow the City Council’s ordinance (adopted June 23rd) to go into effect without her signature is reported in the July 24th edition of the paper by news editor Jacob Fries.
Futurewise’s July 25th press release on the challenge is available here.
Posted July 25th