Commission to take up zoning issues

CHENEY — Sidelined by COVID-19 for most of 2020, the city’s Planning Commission reviewed an aggressive schedule of items for the coming year at its first meeting in 2021, Jan. 11.

Senior planner Brett Lucas outlined three areas proposed for deliberations by the commission over the coming months, with an emphasis on zoning code text amendments. The other two were economic development and a time-honored sore spot among Cheney residents — parking, especially the blocks adjacent to the Eastern Washington University campus.

Like parking, one of the more sensitive zoning issues revolves around occupancy, specifically defining what it means to be a family and thus allowable in a single-family residential (R-1) zone. The issue has generated the most repeat complaints from residents, mainly about the number of unrelated individuals living in a home under the city’s “functional family” definition and how that impacts such things as parking, noise and neighborhood appearances.

The commission is proposing changes to the occupancy code that removes the current language and substitutes International Property Maintenance Code standards for minimum per person area requirements “for bedrooms as well as overcrowding.”

One of these codes requires every living room to contain not less than 120 square feet and every bedroom not less than 70 square feet with every room occupied by more than one person not being less than 50 square feet of floor space for each occupant. The second addresses minimum area requirements where allowing occupancy below the minimum would be considered overcrowding and subjecting the residents — or landlords — to some form of penalty.

The changes were discussed in February and March last year and the subject of an ordinance sent to City Council for approval. Lucas proposed bringing the ordinance, along with another one commission members proposed last spring regarding water conservation measures, back before the commission reexamine for any possible changes before sending them back to council.

Two other zoning code text amendments regarding standards for cottage-style homes and a modification of “bonus density” allowances that had been previously discussed are also on the schedule in 2021. The latter would address consideration of allowing one additional unit for single-bedroom units in the medium-density residential (R-3) or high-density residential (R-3H) zones, changing allowances from one unit per 2.4 acres to one unit per 5,000 square feet.

The final zoning consideration is a new one surrounding allowing self-storage units in the business park zone. Lucas said interest has been expressed in such a development in the city’s Commerce and Industrial Park, a usage that’s not permitted right now, but could be under a conditional use permit with specific design standards.

“If we were to go forward with that we would want to go forward with a conditional use permit so we don’t get the whole business park proliferated with self-storage facilities because that’s really not the purpose of the business park,” Lucas added.

With regards to economic development, Lucas said a discussion was needed to “brainstorm ideas” to facilitate development in the downtown core, specifically how to motivate and encourage property owners of vacant buildings to re-tenant.

“This is a challenge that a lot of cities have,” Lucas said. “You get a tenant that moves out, the landlord maybe has a set amount of rent he wants to have and is not really super encouraged to re-tenant the space.”

Lucas said there might be ways to encourage re-tenanting other than establishing fines, a road he said the city doesn’t want to go down. There is also some interest in looking at ideas for creating “destination developments” in Cheney.

Finally, Lucas said with the COVID-19 pandemic restricting on-campus living and instruction at EWU, parking was not currently an issue, but would likely be again once things hopefully get back to normal later this summer if all goes well with vaccinations. As such, discussions around ideas to improve parking around the campus such as changed striping and creation of two-hour zones should begin to take place as soon as possible.

“I kind of agree with Brett that, especially with the parking plan, that right now there’s not a whole lot going on so it might be advantageous for us to address some of these issues that we know have just been sitting idle for most of 2020 since we haven’t been able to do anything,” Planning Commission Chair Rick Mount said. “It might be a good plan to try to get ahead of the ball game now.”

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].