Planning Commissioner Kimberly Lawson moved for a negative recommendation because she says city code doesn’t allow 24-hour businesses “near” residential areas.
Commissioners McKenna Marchant and Rich Christiansen voted against it as well. But Justin Ciampi and Scott Buchanan supported giving the new unnamed hotel a permit.
City Planner Katie Hennuese wasn’t sure Lawson was interpreting the law correctly because she said “near” is subjective and not a strong enough reason to deny a permit.
And the law requires cities to approve conditional use permits as long as property owners mitigate negative effects. Those are the “conditions” referred to in the permit’s name.
“The place where it gets tricky with state code is state code, it says we can have conditional uses, but we have to have objective conditions,” Henneuse said March 5. “So that's where that's not quite objective, so we don't know that we can hold that condition.”
That’s what hotel developer Rusty Webster’s attorney Nathan Bracken thought.
“I would argue you have to read these two in harmony, which is usually what the statutory rules of construction say, is the more specific controls,” Bracken said. “It sounds like you have a more general code provision that talks about distances to 24-hour businesses, but you allowed a hotel as a conditional use.”
Christiansen said he thought the rule banning 24-hour businesses near residential areas was more specific than the rule allowing hotels.
Either way, the city council gets the final vote on the permit.
Residents have packed recent city planning commission meetings to oppose two proposed hotels, and related code changes.
They’ve expressed concerns about community character and building height, including how many stories to allow in Francis’ town center. Code allows up to three stories, and Webster was asking for four.
If the city council allows four stories, the unnamed hotel will have 67 rooms. If it has to stick with three, it will have 46 rooms.
The rest of Webster’s town center project proposes a sit-down restaurant; two drive-through restaurants; 14,000 square feet of retail and 21 apartment units.
A city council meeting on the plans hasn’t been scheduled.
