SANDPOINT — The Sandpoint City Council voted Wednesday to expand the city’s downtown parking exempt zone to encompass more of the city’s downtown area.

After a public hearing Aug. 6 and discussion Aug. 20, changes to Title 9 of Sandpoint City Code, which deals with off-street parking, were adopted unanimously by the five attending council members. The parking exempt zone allows for non-residential buildings to not abide by the city’s minimum parking requirements. 

"The goal was to do what we could locally to alleviate barrier of investment downtown,” Sandpoint Mayor Jeremy Grimm said of the implementation of the parking exempt zone. “By eliminating the parking requirements in our downtown, we have been fortunate enough to see millions of dollars of investment into buildings that otherwise would have been very difficult.” 

The zone will now include properties along Superior Street and an area south of Lake Street, like the Powder Hound and Hydra Steakhouse. Residential uses in the expanded area will still have to abide by the city’s parking requirements or pay in-lieu fees to the city. 

Sandpoint City Planner Bill Dean said at the Aug. 20 meeting that non-residential private property owners and developers in the parking exempt zone can still propose adding on-street parking, if they see fit. 

During the Aug. 20 meeting, Councilor Kyle Schreiber attempted to remove the expansion of the parking exempt zone from the amendments. He said he supported everything expect the expansion of the zone because of the potential impact on the neighborhoods near the expansion area.  

"East Superior does not have the potential for enough street parking if East Superior was developed to the density of like First and Main,” Schreiber said. “It absolutely will push parking demand out into those neighborhoods and affecting those residents.” 

Schreiber's motion to remove the expansion was shot down at the Aug. 20 meeting in a 4-2 vote, with Councilor Pam Duquette joining him. The amendments were then passed as presented by the council by a 5-1 vote with only Schreiber dissenting. 

At Wednesday’s meeting, Schreiber voted “No” on the ordinance's first reading by title only but changed his vote to a “Yes” on the ordinance’s adoption. The amendments to the city code also included small changes to the city’s in-lieu fees.  

The fee amount will now be set by a City Council resolution, which may be changed, as opposed to a flat fee of $10,000 per space. The amendments also clarifies that the city can only use revenue generated to improve public parking, not all parking in the city. 

The exempt zone was originally put into place during the 2008 recession, when Grimm was the city’s Community Planning and Development Director. He said that the city was facing an over 40% vacancy on the ground floor of the buildings downtown and that the parking requirements were a large hurdle for new developers to cross. 

"Look at the Umpqua bank, that big bank downtown,” Grimm said. “When that was constructed the parking requirements were so great that they ended up having to knock down almost three blocks of existing buildings to provide parking for that bank building." 

Grimm said that the exempt zone has allowed for renovations downtown like The Hive, Fat Pig and McDuff’s expansion to occur without requiring those buildings to have accommodate for more parking. He said in other cities where these exemptions do not exist downtowns have been taken over by required surface parking. 

"People don’t come downtown for parking lots,” Grimm said. “They come downtown for a different experience in a rural or suburban setting. They come down for businesses, shopping, entertainment, activities, not big parking lots.”