Agenda - Council Work Session - 06/02/2009

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.:#1 CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION Topic Report: Highway 10 Performance Standards By: Amber G. Miller, Community Development Director Background: The issue of the appearance and enforcement of the properties along Highway 10 was raised again recently in discussions regarding prioritization of the RALF funds. Staff was asked at that time to bring it back before Council at a future Work Session to discuss the issues .surrounding the Highway 10 corridor and how best to address them. Observations: City Staff has observed that the most common areas of violations were illegal outside storage, nonconforming accessory buildings, operations that could be defined as salvage, and lack of required pavement for employee/customer/display areas. The violations that are occurring on these . lots are not the result of "new" or recently implemented regulations. In fact, the paving of display and/or parking areas has been a requirement since the late 1980's and has been included as part of the review of site plans since that time. Salvage operations have never been a permitted use in the highway corridor. Outdoor storage is only allowed in a very limited area along Highway 10. In the past, enforcement has generally been done on a complaint basis, mostly due to staff availability and also to be consistent with enforcement policies in the residential areas. Staff had found that enforcement actions as a result of complaints have been extremely difficult simply because a business would point to other businesses and state that they would comply once the others were forced to do the same. Further complicating enforcement of these regulations is that some properties are viewed as lawful non-conforming with regard to surfacing requirements. This can give the appearance of unfair or uneven application of the regulations. The only way to eliminate this perception would be to adopt a sunset clause that would specifically identify a date by which time all businesses would need to comply with the surfacing requirements. This had been in City Code when the surfacing requirement was clarified in 1993, with a date in 1997 being specified as the compliance date; however, that was never acted upon and ultimately, Staff was directed to amend the Code to eliminate that sunset clause. Staff has additional problems with enforcement due to claims of being "grandfathered" (legal, non- conforming) by previous ordinances. However the facts of grandfathering are these: #1 - burden of proof of grandfather rights fall on them - it's not the City's responsibility to prove they have grandfather rights;