City Hall reduces parking fees for a developer, but wants to put fees on the community

By Bonner County Republican Women, Inc.
Reader Contributors

The city of Sandpoint plans to charge community members to park in the city. Their reasons seem valid: parking is a nightmare and available parking lots need repair. So why should we be upset?

Despite an initial assessment that 244 parking spaces are needed to support a planned resort hotel at City Beach, Averill Hospitality was allowed to reduce the required parking to 144 spaces for a fee of $400,000. 

Per city code: 9-5-18(D): “The parking requirements set forth in the Parking Code may be satisfied in whole or in part by the payment of a nonrefundable parking improvement fee of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) per space.”

This means Averill Hospitality should pay about $1 million versus $400,000 if its request to reduce parking should be accepted.

We questioned Mayor Jeremy Grimm about this discrepancy during a recent City Council meeting. He stated that we’d misinterpreted the code. We subsequently submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the city to learn how the $400,000 fee was assessed and who approved it. 

The response included a copy of an email from Jason Welker (Sandpoint Community Planning and Development director) to individuals working on behalf of the resort. 

In it, Welker indicated that, per City Code, the resort was initially assessed to pay $950,000 in fees. He also stated that the money, “would have allowed the City to undertake improvements to the adjacent public parking facilities at City Beach, including repaving and restriping (has been more than 30 years since this has been done), implementation of a paid parking solution, and improvements to the 17,000 square foot parking area at the north end of the RV park across Bridge Street from the Hotel.”

He later states in the letter:

“I understand Dan [Averill] communicated to the Mayor that your team is prepared to pay in lieu for 40 parking spaces ($400,000) and is thus asking for administrative relief from the additional 55 spaces. … We’ll approve the reduction.” 

Bottom Line: Mayor Grimm and Welker agreed to reduce the number of parking spaces to be created by the resort for $550,000 less than the code suggests. Two months later, Welker announced City Hall plans to charge the local community to fix the parking problem in Sandpoint.

Yes. We should be upset. The good news is that it’s not too late to change these bad decisions. Per the Sandpoint deputy city clerk:

“Staff further reports and notes that fees are paid at the time of building permit application, and there has been no application for building permits to date for this project, thus no invoicing for or payment of in-lieu fees; no further steps towards development have been taken place to date, and no fees have been assessed at this point.”

Before a building permit is granted, let Mayor Grimm and the City Council know the resort should create the parking needed per the original parking assessment, and that $400,000 in lieu of the appropriate parking fee is unacceptable. 

For contact information and a meeting calendar, go to sandpointidaho.gov/our-government.

Bonner County Republican Women, Inc. (BCRWI) includes Victoria Quinn, president; Anita Aurit, vice president; Thea Few, treasurer; and Sandra Rutherford, Dianne Houts, Debbie Keeley and Jennifer Cox, all board members.