A second moratorium on housing development in southwest Spokane might make for a nice campaign promise to those in that neighborhood, but it would do little to address growing pains along the U.S. 195 corridor.

What such an extreme measure would do is perpetuate further the reputation that the city’s elected leaders are inconsistent in their approach to growth and prompt builders to look to neighboring municipalities for opportunity.

As Greenstone Corp. CEO Jim Frank recently told the Journal, such talks send a message to developers that Spokane “is not a safe place to make a housing investment.”

Perhaps more importantly, the notion of a moratorium runs counter to the intent of the state’s Growth Management Act, which restricts development to urban areas in an effort to prevent sprawl. If elected leaders are going to draw boundaries around its municipalities and dictate that development only can occur within those lines, it’s bad policy to restrict development within those boundaries as well. Doing so also goes against local government’s most basic function of providing services within its boundaries.

But that’s precisely what some candidates for the public office are saying. Speaking of the need for road improvements and a new fire station in the Latah Valley, City Council candidate Paul Dillon told a reporter recently, “Without a commitment to funding or a plan, a moratorium must be put in place.”

This discourse is occurring against the backdrop of a local and national housing shortage. A 2021 analysis commissioned by the Spokane Association of Realtors suggests the Spokane area was underbuilt by nearly 32,000 housing units during the 2010s.

In the Latah Valley, 17 developments are planned over the next five to 10 years. If fully developed, they would include a total of 2,800 housing units, including a mix of single-family homes and apartment units.

At six of those developments, construction has started, but the number of homes that can be built is restricted until further infrastructure improvements are made along U.S. 195. We can’t speak to the merits of those restrictions specifically, but the idea of a more nuanced approach to determine where construction can occur makes more sense than a broad, indefinite stoppage of all activity.

All of this might sound familiar, because it is. About this time last year, the City Council imposed a six-month building moratorium in the Latah Valley to address its impact-fee structure. Six months later, it imposed new, higher impact fees citywide.

We used this space at that time to criticize the city’s past and present leaders for neglecting growth in Latah Valley, but in that instance, at least there was a finite goal, and the moratorium was lifted roughly six months later.

But now, the conversation revolves around the fact that those fees only can be used to address the infrastructure improvements necessitated by new development, not present needs.

It’s clear the city has challenges to confront in terms of accommodating growth in southwest Spokane. But the solutions likely will take years to become reality. Road projects don’t occur in a matter of months. The city needs a better vision and greater attention on that part of town, but stopping all development shouldn’t be part of the equation.