At Monday’s meeting, however, much of the council indicated it may favor honoring Sadri’s request — at least to some extent.
The council was open to the idea of renegotiating the development agreement to remove some of the land-use restrictions.
“It feels as though we’re putting additional restrictions on one parcel where we didn’t put restrictions on parcels that are similar,” said Councilor Alishia Topper. “It almost feels like we are a day late and a dollar short if we really want to drive that corridor.”
Topper added that it seems the development agreement is disproportionately impacting Sadri’s parcel of land.
Councilor Bart Hansen said that the agreement in place is now managing via exception.
“I look at some of the properties nearby and I think we’re being a little bit overreaching,” Hansen said. “I would like a happy medium to be met.”
Councilors Linda Glover and Laurie Lebowsky said they go back-and-forth on the issue, but they are concerned with fairness.
As Councilor Ty Stober alluded to, the use the council takes most issue with is self-storage. Sadri applied to build storage facilities on the site despite the specified prohibition in 2017. The issue with self-storage is it creates few jobs compared with the amount of land it consumes.
“I think that the issue is we are lacking a subarea plan here,” Stober said.
The council didn’t ultimately provide direction to staff to consider a subarea plan, but instead asked a draft recommendation be drawn up that removes some use restrictions. A revised agreement will consider compatibility issues with adjacent neighborhoods and passive land-use exclusions. Passive in this context means low employment or low activity, such as a storage facility.
Staff will bring back a compromise proposal at a future council meeting for consideration.
