MOSES LAKE — A downtown coffee house seeking to expand to allow drive-through customers cleared the first hurdle with the Moses Lake City Council during a hearing on Tuesday.

Derek and Daphne Martinez, the owners of The Favored Farmhouse at 415 S. Alder St. near the corner of Alder Street and Fifth Avenue on the south edge of downtown, applied for a deviation from city code. The variance would allow them to put in a driveway with access to Alder Street with the intention of eventually putting in a drive-thru window on the coffee house’s south side.

Council members voted 5-0 to approve the deviation, with Council Member David Eck absent and Council Member Deanna Martinez recusing herself from the vote because of a series of email exchanges she had with the Martinezes, to whom she said she is not related.

The Martinezes sought the deviation because the proposed driveway will be too close to the edge of their property and too close to the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Alder Street, and thus in violation of city code if they’d built it without going before the council. Current city code requires driveways on streets like Alder that are defined as commercial tertiary collectors under city code be at least 20 feet from interior lot lines and 50 feet from an intersection.

The Favored Farmhouse’s proposed driveway would be at least 60 feet from the intersection of Alder Street and Fifth Avenue. However, the southern edge of the house is only 25 feet from the southern lot line — not a lot of room for a 10-foot-wide driveway that would enter the property eight feet from the edge of the house and seven feet from the lot line.

“This is my wife’s dream over here,” Derek Martinez told the city council. “This is the number one request from our customers, and we’re in business to make money and we want to provide great service.”

Officials with the city’s Community Development Department, which reviews building permit applications and enforces the city’s zoning and building codes, recommended the city council reject the deviation application for the driveway.

“There can be significant impacts when we have commercial driveways too close to major intersections,” City Engineer Richard Law told the city council.

During the discussion, City Attorney Katherine Kennison reminded council members that the driveway and the drive-thru window were two separate items. The driveway was all the council was legally allowed to talk about last night, and they were actually engaged in a quasi-judicial hearing involving land use in which council members — who are the final judges of the deviation application — needed to divulge previous contacts and conversations with the Martinezes and possibly recuse themselves from any vote as a result.

“There still needs to be a disclosure, and audience members can object,” Kennison said. “It needs to be on the record, with the ability to rebut, and publicly stated.”

Nearly all of the six council members in attendance said they had been contacted by the Martinezes and had made individual visits to the site to see for themselves what the Martinezes are proposing. At one point, four of the six council members either recused themselves from the vote or suggested they might need to.

“I visited with them to see what they were talking about,” said Council Member Judy Madewell.

Mayor Dean Hankins said the couple had shown him what they intended to do as well.

“I asked them to show me what they are up to. It helped me get the picture in my mind,” said Hankins.

In the end, only Deanna Martinez recused herself from the final vote, citing a sustained correspondence with the Martinezes over their application.

City Manager Allison Williams said council member visits to applicants seeking deviations or variances from city code need to be arranged through city staff and done as a group so there is no appearance of impropriety. Additionally, council members need to rely on development department staff when they make recommendations pertaining to the city’s planning and zoning code.

“It is our responsibility to take the application and to provide you with the complete report, and if you have questions or clarifications for us to provide that back to you,” she said.

When she started her job as Moses Lake city manager, Williams said city staff were clear that they wanted support from the council in enforcing the city’s planning, zoning and building codes. Because in the past, Williams said that the city code has not been as rigorously enforced as some city staffers believe it should be, and it cannot be enforced retroactively.

“There’s a reason why the city code exists,” she said.

While the council members did approve the Martinezes’ request for a deviation on the driveway, they did express concerns over the lack of space and how quickly cars might stack up in the morning as folks wait near a busy intersection at the proposed drive-thru.

The Martinezes still need to get city approval to put a drive-through window in their business, which was apparently built in 1905 and is one of the city’s original buildings, before they can begin any work.

Council Member Mark Fancher noted that 60 feet does not allow for a lot of cars and trucks to line up and wait, and it could make the intersection of Alder and Fifth interesting in the morning.

“That could take up a lane,” he said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.