Nonconforming use debated

Four of the six Spokane Valley City Council members present at Tuesday’s meeting voted to ignore a recommendation by the Planning Commission to reject a proposed amendment that would allow nonconforming uses to expand onto the neighboring property no matter who owns it.

But the vote doesn’t mean anything will change right away. City staff will now draft an ordinance for the council’s approval that would grant the expansion but with additional requirements. Nonconforming uses are created when a zoning change no longer allows a use that used to be allowed in a certain area. Nonconforming uses can continue under “grandfathering,” but their ability to expand is limited.

Current city code allows a nonconforming use to expand onto an adjacent parcel only if the second parcel was under the same ownership when the use became nonconforming. The Planning Commission recommended rejection after city staff said the amendment would violate the comprehensive plan and possibly allow property owners to expand from parcel to parcel to parcel multiple times.

City attorney Mike Connelly said he had some of the same concerns about the amendment. “It would be a somewhat unfettered expansion of nonconforming use,” he said. “There’s no numerical limit as to how many times this could happen.”

Some of the restrictions left after the ownership requirement is removed include that the expansion can’t interfere with the use of neighboring properties and can’t create additional development opportunities. Connelly referred to those criteria as “rather general.” “This is about as broad a brush as I have seen in my review of ordinances that have been proposed,” he said.

The amendment was proposed by Dwight Hume, who operates a land use planning company, to benefit one business, Hite Crane. The business wants to move to 17515 E. Appleway Ave., where it would replace a similar nonconforming use. The move is allowed, but Hite also wants to purchase a small parcel next door for expansion.

Connelly said there are other options that would help Hite Crane, including making the business an allowed use. He reminded the council that if the amendment is passed, it would affect the entire city, not just Hite Crane. “This isn’t a site-specific requirement,” he said.

Three people spoke in favor of adopting the text amendment, all connected directly to Hite Crane. Hume called the planning commission’s recommendation disingenuous because it says that the amendment is in violation of the comprehensive plan. “Nonconformity cannot be in compliance with the comprehensive plan,” Hume said. “He fabricates the whole story on which this whole thing was eventually denied.”

Gary Hite, owner of Hite Crane, said he is required to be out of his current location on Broadway Avenue near the Havana Bridge construction by the end of October. “I am under an extreme timeline,” he said.

Hite said he needs the extra parcel to safely maneuver and stage his equipment and said he was also told he needs it to allow emergency vehicle access. He emphasized that his employees are counting on him for jobs to feed their families. “I’m just trying to continue what I’ve been doing,” he said.

Councilmen Dean Grafos and Bob McCaslin were eager to reject the planning commission’s decision, with McCaslin trying several times to make a motion even though Councilman Bill Gothmann had already made a motion to accept the planning commission’s denial. “Can we discuss this?” said Councilwoman Rose Dempsey.

Gothmann said he was concerned about commercial uses encroaching into neighborhoods. “I would hope that there are other solutions,” he said. “To me it’s a neighborhood issue. Those lines were drawn for a reason. This does away with the buffer zones. That’s not good planning.”

Dempsey said she agreed with Gothmann but would like to have an ordinance that would allow such expansion with a conditional use permit so each request could be considered on its own and mitigation could be required. “We do want him to be able to have his business,” she said. “It has to be done very quickly. He has a really tight timeline here.”

Grafos said that in order to address Gothmann’s concern about encroaching into residential areas the council could stipulate that expansion of nonconforming uses would only be allowed in commercial and industrial zones and further that the expansion could be limited to only one neighboring parcel so a business couldn’t expand indefinitely.

McCaslin and Grafos were joined by Councilwoman Brenda Grassel and Mayor Tom Towey in voting to reject the planning commission’s recommendation to not approve the amendment. Councilman Gary Schimmels was absent.

During a break in the meeting planning commission chairman John Carroll expressed concern over the council’s decision. “They just opened the door for the expansion of all the porn shops,” he said.