Sandpoint council votes to move forward with City Beach parking lot concept

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

The city of Sandpoint is moving forward with a redesign of the City Beach parking lot, after councilors agreed 3-2 at their regular Oct. 7 meeting to direct staff to proceed with a conceptual plan designed to improve safety and access for boat trailers while incorporating a number of changes to traffic flow — including a roundabout “gateway” at the north entrance.

Referred to as “Concept D,” Sandpoint Project Manager Erik Bush told councilors that the current City Beach lot includes 10 boat trailer parking stalls, though the concept would increase that to 30: 20 of which would be dedicated pull-through spots and 10 mixed-use spaces available to both trailers and passenger vehicles.

In addition to the expanded boat trailer capacity, the plan calls for extending parking eastward into what is today the interior of the park’s green space, eliminating the turnaround near the beach pavilion in favor of widened areas for trailer ingress and egress, and the inclusion of trees and other landscape features throughout the main parking area. 

Planning and Community Development Director Jason Welker said the concept is designed to 35% completion, with an engineer’s cost estimate delivered by December. 

“December’s an important deadline for that project, because January is grant deadline time,” he said, highlighting the Waterways Improvement Fund, which the city hopes to leverage for the beach lot reconstruction.

“We needed a more refined concept before they’d approve funding a parking lot improvement at City Beach — particularly one that emphasizes improvements for boat trailer access,” Welker said. “The Waterways Improvement Fund is funded using boat registrations, so that committee that reviews those grant applications is really looking for improvements that enhance access to the boat launch.”

Adding a sense of urgency, Welker added that the committee deciding that funding will meet soon, and he is on the agenda to present. 

“It’s not going to pay for the entire City Beach project, but we’re hoping that at least for the boat trailer access improvements, we can get a significant amount of that funded with the Waterways Improvement Fund grant,” he said.

While council members raised a number of questions related to traffic flow, adequate green space and availability of vehicle parking, Councilor Kyle Schreiber expressed the most concerns.

“We are converting park space into parking lot beautification,” he said, underscoring his worry that the eastward expansion of the lot into the heart of the park would serve parking more than users of the grassy interior of the property.

“I feel like we’re designing this to chase a grant rather than designing it to maximize the benefit for the park users,” he said.

Noting that he’d posed a number of similar questions and concerns weeks before, when the council previously addressed the parking lot plan, Schreiber said that none of those points were included in the concept presented at the Oct. 7 meeting. 

Regardless, he proposed a motion incorporating a number of tweaks to the plan, but which was broken into four separate motions taking each main point in turn.

Specifically, he sought to eliminate the roundabout at the north entrance, preferring a three-way stop to slow traffic. That motion failed on a vote of 2-3. He also asked for the addition of between five and eight stalls near the pavilion with improved access, which also failed 2-3. 

Schreiber’s motion to expand green spaces within the parking lot and among the north entrance roundabout into areas that could be functionally used by park goers failed for lack of a second, though his motion to convert seven of the northernmost boat-only pull-through stalls to hybrid use for vehicles as well passed unanimously.

Still, Schreiber voted against advancing the overall concept plan — joined by Councilor Pam Duquette — reiterating his concern that the redesign favored boat trailers and boat users at the expense of others.

“Is this a park or is this a boat launch?” he said.

City staff and officials repeated throughout the meeting that the plan, even as it was advanced, remained conceptual and returned again and again to the notion that individual details could be “massaged” to accommodate at least modest changes as it progresses to full completion.

“I do support the massaging factor of this,” said Councilor Joe Tate. “I don’t want to get away from how much work our staff has put into this project and just punt it to another year.”