How high? Try $15,000
COEUR d’ALENE — The discussion is back on the table.
After a yearlong pause, the city of Coeur d’Alene will re-visit possible height restriction and design guideline changes along East Sherman Avenue.
This time around, the city wants to hire a professional facilitator, Bernardo-Wills Architects, at a cost of $15,000 to host a pair of public workshops that would combine input from neighbors and developers into the final plan.
“At the end of the day there were some disagreements between neighbors and developers and other folks as to exactly what that (plan) should look like,” said Warren Wilson, deputy city attorney. “That’s where we’re at.”
Tweaking East Sherman design guidelines has been on the city radar since 2007, and a draft of the potential changes passed the Planning and Zoning Commission last spring. But the city held off on bringing it to City Council, suggesting more discussion moderated by a firm would help mesh the different ideas.
“Everyone would like to see East Sherman to be a healthy part of town, a vibrant part of town,” said Joe Morris, president of a nearby historic district association, which wanted the district to resemble the nearby 38-foot residential restriction. “Our concern was that some of the heights, with very little setback, was a concern with the residential homes nearby.”
Last year’s proposed change would have put a 75-foot maximum on buildings between 11th and 23rd streets along East Sherman only if the developers met certain requirements in their building designs. That could be installing pitched roofs or incorporating at least one minor and major amenity into its design, like seating, trees and public art.
Otherwise, those limits could be dropped to 45 feet, a far cry from the current C-17 zone, which allows for unlimited commercial building heights in that stretch of town.
Commercial developers at the time said the restriction would be too low, since off street parking availability requirements wouldn’t allow builders to build as high as they wanted anyway. It wouldn’t be a wise economic investment then, they said, to impose further development restrictions.
The moderator, which was chosen out of four firms from a request for proposal process, will bring the discussion back up. The group would host a pair of yet-to-be-scheduled public workshops, from which an adoption plan would be reviewed.
The General Services Committee recommended approving the contract to the City Council on Monday. It would be paid from the planning professional services budget, which is $15,000 — $19,000 less than last year — and the full contract amount. Around $678 has been spent out of that budget already, so a budget amendment would be presented later this year to cover the difference, according to staff reports.
The contract will go before the City Council at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 1 in the Community Room of the Coeur d’Alene Public Library.