Fisher Building rezone requested

As part of its comprehensive plan review process, city planner Brett Lucas asked Cheney’s Planning Commission to consider answers to three questions for future discussions on land use.

Those questions are how much land should the city allocate for single-family vs. multifamily residential construction, should some industrial-zoned land in west Cheney be considered for other purposes, and should the land where the Fisher Building — Cheney School District’s now vacant former administration building — be rezoned.

The latter comes as a request from the school district itself. Lucas said they had received a letter from Superintendent Dr. Debra Clemens to Mayor Tom Trulove making the request, something confirmed by the district’s executive director of finance, Kassidy Probert, who was in attendance at the commission’s March 14 meeting.

The district has had several inquiries into the building and two offers to purchase the 86-year-old structure, which began life as the district’s high school, since putting it on the market in early 2013. Both potential buyers eventually executed escape clauses in their contracts for several reasons, including building use study results that revealed issues with repurposing the building for other uses, issues including land use and zoning questions.

In a Jan. 23, 2014 Cheney Free Press story, Cheney developer Steve Emtman said one of the reasons he was withdrawing his purchase offer was because some of the rezoning needed for the uses were not as “cut and dry” as he thought.

The land the Fisher Building sits on is currently zoned “Institutional” on the city’s comprehensive plan map, but “Multifamily Residential (R-3)” on the land use map. In a discussion earlier in the meeting, Lucas explained to the commission that the plan map is more of a long-term vision for the city.

“This is where we envision growth happening in the future,” he said.

The land use, or zoning map is more specific, conveying rules and regulations established by the city on what uses should be allowed to go into specific areas of the community.

“Zoning is what’s happening today,” Lucas added.

The proposal for the Fisher Building the commission will consider is to change it from Institutional to Mixed Use, which would allow the structure to be more easily used for a combination of living space and working space. That change would also require a change in the land’s zoning.

New commissioner Rick Mount asked Probert if the district had received any recent interest in purchasing the property. Probert said they had, which was one of the reasons why the district had asked the city to consider changing its designation.

Public Works Director Todd Ableman said the zoning designations for both maps could be done right now if a prospective buyer wanted to go through the process. Lucas added that they were encouraging the commission to make the change as part of the comprehensive plan review process, something that will take a little longer than if a buyer requested the change.

“On their own, about six months,” Lucas said. “Couple months faster than the city.”

Besides land use, the commission also will consider possible changes to the Community Vision portion of the comprehensive plan. The vision is a broad-brush statement about how residents see the city presently, how they see it in the future and what role they play.

The vision chapter includes descriptions of many elements of Cheney including housing, downtown, transportation, shopping and services and development of its economics and natural environment.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].