(The Center Square) – Spokane Valley officials received an economic report on Tuesday, illustrating a booming population compared to its neighbor to the west, even as the Valley’s building permits fall off.
The Valley split from the city of Spokane and incorporated itself as a self-governing municipality in 2003. While Havana Street separates the two, it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. The cities and economies are intrinsically intertwined while sporting key differences.
Spokane County encompasses both and struggles to keep up with the current housing demands as people flock to the region. According to recent projections, more than 100,000 people could move to the county by 2046, with over 20% anticipated to settle within Spokane Valley.
“Since you incorporated in [2003], you’ve been growing at an average annual rate of 1.3%, which is about twice the rate of the U.S.,” Dr. Patrick Jones, executive director of the Institute for Public Policy & Economic Analysis at Eastern Washington University, told the city council.
The Valley’s current population is around 109,000, having recently exceeded the county’s growth rate, which it typically mirrors, by about 0.4%. While the city of Spokane has a population of around 233,000, its 2024 annual growth rate is far less, at only 0.13%.
Jones said about 19% of the county lives in the Valley, which has remained “remarkably stable” since incorporating; meanwhile, the city of Spokane’s share has fallen from 44% to 41% since then.
However, Spokane Valley struggles to keep up with its neighbor in terms of building permits.
While permits for single-family residences in the city of Spokane are up about 20% compared to the same quarter two years ago, Jones said there’s been an overall decline in Valley since then.
The most recent fiscal quarter was the worst the Valley has seen in nearly three years, with only 23 SFR permits – a document showing that a structure meets the safe/code-compliant specifications – issued across the third quarter compared to a recent peak of 78 in the second quarter of 2022. The city of Spokane issued 74 SFR permits during the third quarter; however, its population also doubles the Valley’s.
The disparity is more apparent but also confusing when considering multi-family building permits. Jones also provides economic reports for the city of Spokane, but he tracks their multi-family permits by units rather than the individual buildings permitted like in the Valley.
The city of Spokane permitted over 1,000 multi-family units last year, far exceeding the prior record of about 500 in 1996, but most are scattered between a few buildings. The city issued 866 as of the third quarter of this year, with 723 units from that quarter alone.
Comparatively, Spokane Valley issued about 87 multi-family building permits in 2023, but it’s unclear how many units those provided. The city has only issued 27 as of the third quarter of this year despite handing out 76 by that time last year.
“Apartment buildings seem to have slowed down more,” said Dr. Kelly Cullen, policy analyst and economist of the Institute for Public Policy & Economic Analysis at EWU. “We’re still seeing active construction going on with duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes, which are also multi-family but not providing as much units as an apartment building.”
