Property Puzzle Part 2

The hearing for the New Saint Andrews art gallery zoning dispute took place this week. In this video, we do a walk through of the council’s decisions and its potential implications going forward. Also, our producer calls in to set the record straight on a couple things.

Read the full transcript of the video below:

Two Characters: Producer and Talent

P: Talent! We gotta talk!

T: How’s it going y’all? Aiden Anderson here with the Moscow Minutes. We’re back to wrap up the conversation about the New Saint Andrews art gallery zoning dispute. My producer is here on the phone with me once again, and he does not sound happy.

P: Don’t air my grievances for me, I’ll air my grievances for me!

I told you the last time we went over this issue that I’d be paying close attention and you managed to screw it up! I’ve been reading up on this zoning stuff now for a hot minute, and you managed to botch some details last time! This is why we can’t have nice things!

T: Ok, ok. Can I at least go through the City Council meeting before we sort this out?

P: I mean, that’ll give me more time to prepare my rant, so sure.

T: Thanks, I guess. Let’s get into it.

It was standing room only at the Moscow City Council meeting with what appeared to be over 120 people in attendance. You don’t see these numbers in the council chambers often, and believe me, they did not go unnoticed.

The main item of the audience’s attention was the first one on the docket: the appeal of the board of adjustment’s decision regarding 414 South Main Street. To do a brief recap of the most recent events, a city zoning administrator decision made on the property determined that the property’s newest lease holder, New Saint Andrews College, could not put administrative offices in the building without violating the zoning code’s restrictions on educational institutions.

New Saint Andrews leadership and the property owner appealed this decision to the board of adjustment on June 11th, and they ultimately voted to reverse the zoning administrator decision. City staff appealed this decision to the council, and that is what they addressed at this meeting.

The quasi-judicial nature of the matter places certain restrictions on these kinds of discussions based on Idaho State Code. In this case, it meant that the only people who were going to be allowed to present were city staff, with no additional testimony or public input permitted. 

City staff made their appeal based on the BOA being arbitrary in their decision, and making a decision unsupported by substantial evidence in the record. The council was given the choice to sustain, reverse, or remand the BOA’s decision in part or in whole.

Let’s look at what the council had to say in their deliberation…

…Having given their thoughts, the council voted unanimously to reverse the decision of the BOA, thus reverting back to the original zoning administrator decision, which states that the educational use restrictions still apply to New Saint Andrews putting administrative offices in the building.

We’ll be coming back to this item in a bit, but that’s the summary from this week’s meeting.

Next up, an Idaho revolving loan fund supplemental revenue bond ordinance. Try saying that 10 times fast.

This item would typically be on the consent agenda which usually gets approved in a block at the start of each meeting, except for this item was an ordinance which requires a vote. 

Bill Belknap shared the background on this one. Back in 2014, the city started work on some improvements to its water system to be in compliance with state standards. In 2019, the city was approved for low interest revolving loan funding from the state to help with this project.

As the original goals for the project are now complete, the city is ready to convert the remaining funds from construction funds to bond financing. The bonds will be purchased solely by the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality and will last a period of 20 years with a 2.25% interest rate. This was approved unanimously by the city council.

Bill Belknap was, in a way, himself the focus of the last item of the evening. The city is looking to update the name of his title from City Supervisor to City Administrator. This doesn’t change the nature of the job, but it does make for a more commonly used title when it comes to other cities in Idaho.

Such a title change requires amendments to city code, both when it comes to the part of the code that describes the City Administrator’s job, as well as any pieces of code that might reference the City Administrator. Both of those code amendments were approved unanimously by the council as well.

We also got a few highlights from the council’s reports. Gina mentioned a new species of tree that has only very recently been discovered with some involvement from our own local tree enthusiasts. Sandra reminded everyone about the upcoming Howling at the Hamilton event. Julia and Drew gave a warm welcome to all the students who are back in town, and lastly Mayor Bettge brought to attention the airport board’s need for people on its strategic planning team.

And that about sums up the Moscow City Council meeting. Are you ready to rant at me now?

P: Believe me, if I wasn’t going to, I wouldn’t have hung around for this long.

T: C’mon. We’re the same person. How can you—

P: Not the point… Let’s get started.

We should begin by going back to your report from some weeks ago.

T (in the past): Back in 2001, when New Saint Andrews first acquired the Skattaboe Block where their main campus currently resides, city zoning code allowed the college to occupy the space based on permitted use. This was eventually changed to a conditional use.

P: Nope! Not how it happened!

T: What do you mean?

P: This requires a closer look at the zoning code from back then. A copy of the city’s zoning code from back in 1998 has a full-fledged section on the Central Business Zoning district. The only mention of anything educational within the code’s list of permitted uses is here: Title 4, Chapter 3, Section 3.5. Here, it mentions the following uses that are permitted: Vocational schools, churches, synagogues, mosques, governmental offices, libraries, museums, art galleries, police and fire stations, and similar public or private institutions; but excluding elementary and junior high schools. 

 So the issue here is that the code says nothing about private or public universities being permitted in the Central Business zone; they’re defined in a separate piece of the code. The city’s zoning code is exclusionary, so if anything is not mentioned explicitly as permitted in that section of the code, the default is that it is not a permitted use. 

T: Ok, I can’t argue with that. But New Saint Andrews did take up occupation and operations at the Skattaboe Block in 2001 regardless. How’d that come about if the zoning code didn’t allow it?

P:The zoning administrator back then appears to have made the determination that, based on their interpretation of the zoning code, New Saint Andrews fit into one of the central business zones approved categories, and thus their use of the space was approved by right.

T: Wait, I’m confused. Was NSA’s initial use of Skattaboe Block a permitted use or not? 

P: Depends how you read the code. Technically it was permitted based on the zoning administrator’s decision at the time. However, if you look at how the conversation progressed, it’s clear that folks felt that this interpretation was in error. Fast-forward several years to 2005, and you find that the planning and zoning commission spent from August to November working on changes to the Zoning Code, with particular attention to schools in non-residential zoning districts.

This series of over eight meetings culminated in the final meeting of the Moscow City Council in 2005 on December 19th. At this meeting, they approved Ordinance 2005-33, which amended the city code to require the conditional use permitting process for all schools within certain zoning districts, including but not limited to the Central Business Zoning District. The code presented at the time reads as follows:

Conditional Uses, Number 8: Commercial schools and educational institutions. with specific consideration given to traffic, parking, safety and nuisance issues, as well as cumulative impacts of and proximity to existing commercial schools and educational institutions in the vicinity and impact on availability of retail and office space, especially at street level. Applications for educational institutions shall be accompanied by a detailed, written description of plans, including present student enrollment, staff on site, site development and future enrollment growth and any phasing thereof.

So, since then, educational institutions looking to have space in the Central Business Zone — including New Saint Andrews — have gone through the conditional use permit process for their buildings, at least up until the adoption of Ordinance 2019-07, which prohibits further expansion of educational uses in the zone. And that’s where we stand today.

Ok. Rant over. What do you have to say?

T: I didn’t realize you’d be so passionate about the specifics of zoning code.

P: Well, now that we’re talking about it, it matters a lot. You gotta set the record straight.

T: In that case, let’s drill into some specifics here. 

In the 90s and early 2000s, the City Code did not have explicit permissions for educational institutions like New Saint Andrews in the Central Business Zone. The code at the time said nothing of colleges or schools like NSA in that section, and because the code is exclusionary, if it’s not written there, it’s not allowed. But the phrase “similar public or private institutions” would seem to allow for something like a college to be included, right?

P: It’s ambiguous enough, I suppose. Depends on the person making the determination.

T: And we know that city staff at the time made the determination that NSA would be allowed downtown, regardless of what local conversation followed. So with the zoning code being ambiguous, you’d just be relying on an arbitrary decision from the city on something like this.

P: Perhaps. But then that all gets cleared up by the zoning code changes made in 2005. At that point, all schools needed a CUP to operate within the Central Business Zone, and much later, with Ordinance 2019-07, no further educational use would be permitted.

T: I think we’re all good there. Let’s turn our attention back to the most recent hearing on the 414 South Main property.

The main item the councilors referenced in their deliberation was the transcript from the Board of Adjustment hearing in June. They used quotes from that as evidence that the board had made its decision arbitrarily and without using substantial evidence. Their determination in reversing the BOA’s decision was that the board was behaving in a manner which they deemed arbitrary, but did that determination really deal with everything?

P: Well, they made the decision with all the evidence on hand. No additional appeals can be made. I don’t see the discussion going anywhere else at this point.

T: That’s what concerns me. If we look at the BOA’s reasoning at the time of their meeting, I think we’ll find some stones which have been left unturned. Let’s go some clips of the city’s video from that event:

What I think we can see here is that the Board is frustrated with the lack of clarity surrounding Ordinance 2019-07. They weren’t able to make any changes to the Ordinance itself, but the wording of the Ordinance, combined with the arguments from both City staff and the appellant left them in want of a different venue for discussion.

They voted to reverse the zoning administrator’s decision, in favor of the appellant. Was their reasoning based on the evidence from either side of the appeal? Well, not exactly. It seems that they voted the way they did to get it passed along to council in order to get clarity on interpreting Ordinance 2019-07. Does that make their decision arbitrary?

P: From one perspective, I’d say yes. They made a decision on a property, based on factors that had nothing to do with that property. They voted not after careful consideration and deliberation of the evidence surrounding that property, but on what move tactically could get the decision out of their hands and into the hands of the council. 

T: Yeah, but from another perspective, calling their decision “arbitrary” is ridiculous. They didn’t just willy-nilly say, “Yeah, reverse this zoning determination, doesn’t matter why.” They had specific, intentional reasons for voting the way they did, regardless of the immediate effects of their decision. They wanted clarity on how they should interpret Ordinance 2019-07 and they sought that clarity by choosing a path of decision-making that would most directly get the city council involved to help give it to them. So the question is, did they get the clarity they were looking for?

P: That’s gonna be a matter of perspective too. At one level, the council voted, and what they said is final. The BOA can reference this case all they want going forward if an issue like this comes up again. But…

T: Yeah…?

P: But the council didn’t actually have to address the educational use appeal that the appellants made to the BOA. They just had to address the city’s appeal of the BOA decision, which means they just had to decide if the board was being arbitrary or not. In a sense, they didn’t bring much thought to bear at all on the issues the BOA was hoping they’d address. 

T: So where does that leave us as far as clarity goes?

P: I mean, we have the decisions that were made… and that’s about it. When you have all the details together like this, trying to use this decision to justify future actions feels almost as arbitrary as basing those actions on no reasoning at all… But what does this have to do with all the stuff from 2001?

T: Well, we just happen to be looking at two use cases of zoning decision-making where both the same parties are involved, and where arbitrariness appears to be a key factor in arguments surrounding these situations. In 2001, an “arbitrary” decision on the zoning administrator’s part apparently netted a downtown building for New Saint Andrews and resulted in a pretty significant overhaul of the zoning code. In 2024, we have this latest set of “arbitrary” decisions when it comes to offices, an art gallery, and an uncertain BOA. Should we anticipate anything more coming out of this?

P: Why do you have to make it so complicated?

T: Chill out, I’m not gonna speculate on anything. The decision has been made, and now the city and New Saint Andrews will act in accordance with that decision. I think the question of clarity brought up by the BOA regarding future zoning decisions remains mostly unanswered, but at least this situation is settled. 

P: Are you gonna say anything about the details you missed last time?

T: Don’t you mean the details we missed last time?

P: Whatever. Just keep it to a minimum. These issues are complicated enough without some facts missing. 

T: I got it, I got it… Do you wanna talk elections while I have you?

P: Oh gosh. Any mention of elections after all that makes me want to curl up in the back of a Camry and never come out. Save it for later.

T: Right…

So that’s a wrap on 414 South Main for now. If you learn anything from this issue, I hope it’s that the process of dealing with any zoning board is a long and complex one, sometimes involving decades-worth of documents to sort through. I could be wrong about this, but I don’t see the zoning ambiguities that this particular issue presents going away anytime soon. All the more reason to pay attention to things like our city code and better prepare yourself for issues as they arise.

Another thing you might learn from all this is that when an issue is presented before the city council, it is often on the last steps of a journey that began a long time ago elsewhere. If there are issues or particular changes you want to see addressed by the city, there is wisdom in retracing the steps of that journey to its source point, and getting involved there, rather than just at the end point. That might mean sitting in on some of the city commission meetings, or looking up future agendas way ahead of time. All that to say, if you want to make a difference when it comes to issues you care about, make sure you know where you are in the process.

As always, we’ll have the relevant links posted with this video, and if you have any questions, please reach out. I’m Aiden Anderson with the Moscow Minutes. See you next time.