Council debating drive-through ban

SANDPOINT — Sandpoint’s proposed drive-through ban has been a hot topic at local bars and coffee shops for more than a month, and tonight the City Council will finally get its say on the matter.

The council will take up the ban at 5:30 p.m. during its monthly council session at City Hall.

The prohibition was first considered at October’s Public Works meeting, but an official proposal was not brought before the Planning Commission until last month. The commission recommended several changes to the document, including requiring drive-throughs to submit to a conditional use permit rather than an outright ban, but the council is not bound by the recommendations.

Councilman John Reuter made the original motion to prohibit drive-throughs at October’s meeting, but said it was never his intention to seek a permanent ban.

He said the uproar over the proposal can be blamed on a lack of communication.

“I think the real cause of the situation we had is that people — particularly me — didn’t communicate effectively enough or clearly enough what our intention was, and we ended up making the public worry about something we never intended to do,” Reuter said.

The tightrope for council members, according to Reuter, is finding a balance between policies that benefit business owners and polices that benefit residential neighborhoods.

“I think it’s really important that we come up with zoning that is both pro business and pro neighborhood,” he said. “What that means to me is that we’re preserving Sandpoint as it is rather than some idealized place, and drive-throughs are part of what make Sandpoint a livable community.”

In addition to the drive-through prohibition, the proposed changes would also require a conditional use permit for new or expanding businesses larger than 20,000 square feet. During the conditional use processes, those businesses would be required to submit to nine new site and contextual planning standards, which include surface parking requirements, pedestrian circulation amenities and a number of aesthetic requirements.

Among the aesthetic components, structures would be required to have “exterior building materials and colors that are aesthetically pleasing … ,” including “the use of high-quality materials and colors that are low reflective, subtle, neutral, or earth tone,” according to a Planning Commission staff report.

The amendment would also disallow the use of florescent or metallic colors, “although brighter colors in limited quantities as building trims or accents may be considered at the discretion of the Planning Commission,” according to the report.