Signs allowed to stay for Main Street property owner

Grand Coulee has decided to allow local property owner Sam Hsieh to continue to display multiple advertising signs along his lot located on Main Street called “Coulee Plaza.” 

“I would like to thank the mayor and the city council for working together with me through this,” Hsieh told The Star on Tuesday. “I’m excited to see Coulee Plaza continuing to serve the community!”

The issue has been ongoing since October of 2020 when the city council had initially voted against allowing the signs to stay.

Hsieh was told by the city following a complaint that signs advertising businesses on his property are against City Code Chapter 17.60 which states that only one freestanding sign is allowed for single-occupancy buildings, as well as for multiple offices or businesses within a structure or planned commercial/industrial park.

Hsieh bought the property with the understanding that the signs were permissible, with the advertising revenue from the signs helping to pay for the property.

He has hosted car events and Koulee Kids Fest activities at Coulee Plaza in recent years as a way of giving back to the community.

In November of last year, an online petition Hsieh had posted had received 650 signatures of support for him to be able to keep his signs, many of them being from residents of Grand Coulee and the larger Grand Coulee Dam area.

At their Nov. 17, 2020 meeting, the Grand Coulee City Council decided the signs would be allowed to stay, at least until their leases were up, and the situation was referred to the planning committee to see if a solution could be found to amend city code.

At their July 20 meeting, rather than changing the code, Mayor Paul Townsend told the council that “in all fairness to parties involved, and our lack of action to the previous tenant, in my opinion, it should be allowed this time.”

The council did not vote on the matter.

Townsend told The Star on Tuesday that since the rule hadn’t been enforced for the previous owner before, and that Hsieh had bought the property with the understanding that the advertising signs were allowed, that the signs were essentially grandfathered in.

Townsend emphasized that it is because of the circumstances that the signs are allowed to stay and not special treatment, and that multiple signs won’t be allowed in future instances.

The mayor said he didn’t want to open a door that could make the side of every building look like an advertising billboard, a look the city code was passed to prevent.