Spokane Historic Design Review: Questions Before Exterior Changes
Design review in Spokane does not treat every old house the same way. It reaches only properties listed on the Spokane Register of Historic Places — individually or as contributing properties inside a local historic district — and the approval a project needs is settled change by change, on that particular building. Two houses on one street can get different answers for the same window. So the useful work before you design or order anything is a short list of questions about the property and the change.
This page is for the owner of a Spokane Register landmark, or a property inside a local historic district, who has an exterior change in mind. It covers who is in scope, how to find your work in the code’s own review chart, what the decision is measured against, what to prepare, and where the process stops for a professional. It quotes no fee and describes no property in particular. If the status of the address is still open, settle it first with the guide to improving an older Spokane home and the historic-status check.
Quick route
| Your situation | Check first | Have ready |
|---|---|---|
| A listed landmark, any exterior change | The code’s review chart, then the office | A work description and current photographs |
| A property inside a local district | The chart, read by elevation | The district name, and which face the work touches |
| Unsure whether the change is “exterior” | A written scope for the office | Drawings, or a plain description of what changes |
| The change is not on the chart | The preservation office, by telephone | The description you would send with an application |
| A National Register property only | Whether the demolition ordinance applies | The register and district fields |
| Demolition, relocation, or a new building | The office and the full Commission | Plans, and the eligibility question |
| An address in Spokane Valley | That city’s own rules | The jurisdiction confirmation |
Who is actually in scope
The office states the rule plainly: not every historic property owner goes through design review — “Only owners with buildings listed on the Spokane Register of Historic Places.” A property on the National Register alone is not bound to a management agreement, and renovating it does not require design review, though the office warns that one inside a National Register historic district may be caught by the City’s demolition ordinance.
A local listing is what binds the work. The management agreement, as the office describes it, requires a Certificate of Appropriateness for “any action affecting use, exterior appearance, new construction or demolition of the designated historic structure.” Those words are broad; the code’s permit triggers are narrower. A certificate precedes a permit for demolition or relocation of a landmark or contributing resource, work affecting a landmark’s exterior appearance, work significantly affecting a district building’s street-facing façade, and new construction inside a district boundary. The permit file for the address is a separate record, read through a permit-history lookup.
The districts the office names in its design-review instructions are Browne’s Addition, Booge’s Addition, Comstock-Shadle, Corbin Park, the Cannon Streetcar Suburb and Hillyard Historic Business. Its separate district page adds Cannon Hill Park, so its own two pages do not agree. Confirm a district question with the office rather than counting lists.
Two boundaries sit outside this. A Spokane Valley address is not in the City and County program; its rules come from that city, and the jurisdiction check settles which authority an address has. Inside the program, the office covers the City of Spokane and the unincorporated county, not the whole mailing area.
Find your work in the code’s own chart
The code sorts work into three levels in one table, Table 17D.100.200-1, and the office publishes the same table as its Design Review Chart. Its heading carries the warning: “This list is not exhaustive, please check with the Historic Preservation Office if you plan work not found below.” Read it by line: the same job lands at a different level depending on which face of the building it touches, what it is made of, and where the building stands.
| Work | No review | Staff review | Commission review |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paint the same colour; repaint a previously painted surface in Browne’s Addition | ✓ | ||
| Repair a porch or siding; demolish a non-historic garage | ✓ | ||
| Install a fence — except in Corbin Park — or landscaping structures and paving | ✓ | ||
| Utility or mechanical equipment not visible from the street | ✓ | ||
| Paint a new historic colour; strip paint from masonry | ✓ | ||
| Replace a porch in kind; enclose a porch away from the street; replace a secondary door | ✓ | ||
| Re-roof with like materials; install signage or street-visible utility equipment; build a new deck; minor work not seen from the street | ✓ | ||
| Corbin Park: install a fence, or remove a tree six inches or larger | ✓ | ||
| Replace windows; replace a street-facing door; cut a new opening in the primary façade | ✓ | ||
| Install new siding; build or enclose a street-facing porch; add a new awning | ✓ | ||
| Paint unpainted masonry, or paint a non-historic colour | ✓ | ||
| Re-roof with new materials; change the roofline; remove or alter a prominent chimney | ✓ | ||
| Build an addition, an attached garage or a new building; move a building | ✓ |
A fence needs no review — unless it is in Corbin Park, where it is staff review. A street-facing door goes to the Commission; the same door on a secondary elevation does not. The office also lists changes of use and demolitions among the work it reviews, and an unlisted job is a question for the office, not a free pass.
The three levels, and who decides
No review covers ordinary repair and maintenance. The office’s wording: “normal maintenance or repair does not require design review if no changes are made to the exterior appearance of the building.”
Staff review is approval by the Historic Preservation Office rather than the Commission; the office notes that some work “does not merit commissioner approval.” The code lets the office approve applications administratively for non-contributing resources inside districts, in consultation with the Commission’s Design Review Committee.
Commission review is the full Spokane Historic Landmarks Commission, which meets on the third Wednesday of each month at 3 p.m. in the Council Briefing Center at City Hall. Commissioners visit the site before they vote, and an application for full review must reach the office at least three weeks before the meeting.
The office sets the level: submit through the City’s Accela Citizen Access portal, under “Historic Preservation & Tax Exemptions”, and an email back states the type of review and the fee.
What the decision is measured against
The management agreement binds the owner to the Management Standards and the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation. The code is explicit that a local district’s design standards and guidelines “are not development regulations” but guidance for the owner, the officer and the Commission — and that final decisions “are based on the Secretary of Interior Standards for Rehabilitation”, the federal regulations at 36 CFR 67.
In the office’s own summary, those standards ask an owner to use the property as it was historically, or give it a new use needing minimal change to its distinctive materials, features and spaces; to retain the historic character rather than remove it; to add nothing that creates a false sense of history; to keep changes that have themselves acquired significance; to repair deteriorated features rather than replace them, matching the old in design, colour, texture and, where possible, materials where replacement is unavoidable; to use the gentlest means possible on historic material; to protect archaeological resources in place; to make new work differentiated from the old yet compatible in material, size, scale, proportion and massing; and to build new work so that, if it is removed later, the essential form of the property survives.
The code adds the reason the answer differs between two houses: the standards are applied “in a reasonable manner, taking into consideration economic and technical feasibility” of that particular project.
What to bring to the application
The application attaches the detail the review turns on: new-construction plans, details of the materials proposed, paint colour swatches where colour is part of the change, and photographs of the existing building. Because the level of review depends on the specifics, those attachments carry the project. Photograph from the ground; there is no reason to walk a roof for this file.
The pre-review question file
Empty fields are intentional.
| Field | Your entry |
|---|---|
| Address and parcel number | |
| Register: Spokane, National, both, or none | |
| Individually listed, or contributing in which district | |
| The change, in one sentence | |
| Which façade or elevation it affects | |
| The chart line it matches, and the level it carries | |
| Materials, colours, and any paint swatch | |
| Whether it touches a significant feature | |
| If the chart omits it: the question for the office | |
| What a licensed trade must handle |
Exceptions and stopping points
- Maintenance that is not maintenance. Repair that changes no exterior appearance needs no review, but a “repair” that swaps material or alters the look is a different case.
- A district with its own lines. Corbin Park already differs for fences and trees; confirm anything district-specific with the office.
- Demolition, relocation, a change of use, or new construction. These run through the office and the full Commission.
- Structure, electrical service, gas, roofing, or abatement. Licensed trades and the named agencies, whatever the review decides.
- A Spokane Valley address. That city, not this program.
Next step
Confirm the register and district first, then find the proposed change in the code’s review chart and note the level it falls under. Prepare the description, materials and photographs the application asks for. If the chart omits your work, or the property sits near a district boundary, call the preservation office on 509-625-6300 with the address and the change in hand before you design or order anything. Report an error or a change through our contact page.