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News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Electric City’s council voted to remove any restrictions on the size of accessory buildings at its meeting last Tuesday night.
The city’s planning commission had sent up a litany of proposed changes to the building code, the accessory building question one of the items, along with minor changes in fencing and businesses in homes.
The council only addressed the size of accessory buildings after hearing a number of people from the audience ask for the proposed size of 1,728 square feet be scrapped.
Councilmember Aaron Derr moved to remove the restrictions and Marie Chuinard seconded the motion. It passed 5-0.
Now the city must decide where to go from there.
The city could decide to send the issue back to its planning commission; take up the other recommendations of the planning commission at the council’s next meeting; or declare the 60-day public comment period to begin.
When asked about the council’s decision to ignore the planning commission’s work, chairman Monty Fields said he had no comment.
The planning commission next meets March 3, at 3 p.m. at the city council chamber.
The council ignored the results of its own community survey that showed respondents 2-1 in favor of some type of restrictions on accessory buildings.
The issue has bounced between the planning commission and the city council for nearly two years.
Proponents of the larger size for accessory buildings have successfully pointed out that they have invested in a number of things such as motorhomes, boats and other recreational devices and only want to put them inside to protect their investments.
The city has until now restricted the size of accessory buildings to 850 square feet, and it was generally agreed, though not officially, that the square footage be adjusted to 1,728. That would have been more than double of the existing size restriction.
Those who are in favor of some kind of restrictions on the size of accessory buildings have failed to appear and let their concerns be heard.
The survey results were tabulated last September.
Reader Comments(1)
Mark Payne writes:
Accessory building do have size limits in Electric City. The accessory survey that the planning commission had the city mail out last September did show that the community did want some size limits on out building 34% to 64%,that is why the commission put in the following restrictions.The building can only be 26 feet tall they have 6 inches of set back for every foot over 18 feet this is in addition to the 5 feet already in place. They also can't be in front of the home must be set back off of the house at least 5 feet and any street 20 feet. Furthermore depending on what zone you live in R-1,R-2 or R-3 you can only build on 35% 50% or 60% of your lot. You must first have a house before you can build an accessory building, the house any paving of drive ways and side walks needed to be deducted from your percent lot coverage. As we can see the planning commission did address the communities concerns with unlimited building sizes. The Electric City council did not ignore the planning commission's work, they kept all 32 pages of recommendations only changing one number. I would like to thank the planning commission and city council for the work they have put into this over the last two years.
02/23/2015, 1:17 pm