Big 5's windows proving a real pain for city
SANDPOINT - The City Council is at odds with its planning staff and a developer over a construction project that several council members claim violates city code.
Council members Carrie Logan and Helen Newton say Seattle's Paul Delay, whose development company is building a Big 5 Sporting Goods on Fifth Avenue, is ignoring city code by not including enough window coverage on the store.
According the city's zoning laws, structures in the Fifth Avenue Overlay District, where the Big 5 is being built, must have at least 50 percent window coverage on all first floor facades abutting a public sidewalk.
Newton and Logan say Delay is disregarding the spirit of the law - if not the letter of the law - by putting in non-display windows with drywall behind the glass, which do not allow pedestrians to look into the building.
"Part of the whole purpose of the overlay zone is creating a pedestrian-friendly environment. Part of it is looking into a store and deciding if you want to go in," Logan said.
Earlier this month the council unanimously affirmed that the overlay zone requires 50 percent window coverage, with no more than 20 percent of the window surface covered unless a conditional use permit is granted.
"The full council, to a person, voted to support windows in the building, and that was the direction given to (Planning Director Jeremy Grimm)."
In a letter sent to Delay on Sept. 17, Grimm informed Delay that city staff felt Big 5's windows violated city code and were not consistent with the building's conditional use permit, but said the city would compromise by allowing Delay to install windows with a wall behind them that display historical photographs of Sandpoint.
A day after sending the letter to Delay, Grimm circulated a memo to council members saying he has the authority to interpret and enforce city zoning code. The memo went on to say the Big 5 plan embodied the spirit of the code and noted that the code does not define what a window is.
"The council chooses to rely on one Webster's definition while the developer has the latitude to choose another (2. A framework enclosing a pane of glass)," Grimm said in the memo.
Newton questions Grimm's authority to make a compromise without council consent and wants more time to deliberate on the matter before a decision is made.
"I think it's a compromise the city council needs to discuss together," Newton said. "We took a strong stand on this at the meeting and gave specific instructions, which have now been altered."
Marshall Clark, president of Clark Pacific Real Estate, represents the development and said the building is completely in line with city code and has not been altered since the original city plan was approved by both city staff and the Planning Commission.
"This overlay zone was very complicated as it was, and I think we've honored it not only legally but in spirit," Clark said. "In the city's code, they don't specify what type of window, they just say window. They don't say you need to look all the way through the store."
Clark also points to a number of other businesses in the overlay zone that have windows with obstructed views or tinted glass and argues the council cannot pick and choose which sites it enforces the letter of the law on.
"You cannot be a government agency and do one thing for one person and something else with another. That's illegal and that's dishonest. And I'm sure (the council) doesn't want to be in that position," Clark said.
The construction will move forward as planned, according to Clark, who said the council would be on "dangerous ground" and "very dumb" to try void the agreement.
"We have a deals in writing with the city. If they want to renege on their deals, it's not going to look very good. How is anyone going to trust them?" Clark said. "I would think they would be very wise to leave us alone now."