Weiser Council approves city block rezone

The Weiser City Council has approved a request to rezone one of its commercial blocks to residential.

 Tony Edmondson, who submitted the request on behalf of the Weiser Historic Preservation Commission, initially took the matter before city planning and zoning, which recommended that the city approve the request.

 A public hearing was then held in June and another on Monday, July 8, the city council unanimously approving the request.

 “We are just tickled,” Edmondson said last week. “Now, I believe, it has to be codified and published as a new ordinance, and that is probably going to take months, but we are tickled. We talked about this for a long time, and the timing was good for it to happen.”

 The block in question is located between W. First and Second streets, and Main and Court streets. All but the post office, located on the southeast corner of Main and First Streets, are currently residential properties.

 “We don’t know when it got zoned commercial or why it got zoned commercial, but other than the post office, and maybe the building just west of it – that was a Sears at one time – all of that is residential and it has always been residential use.”

 A big part of the concern is residents who bought homes assuming they were located in a residential zone. It was a logical assumption, considering all the lots north and west of the block are residential properties. Properties to the east and south are commercial.

 It was, however, a false assumption.

 The rezone, according to Edmondson, would ensure that historic properties are left undisturbed and prevent commercial businesses from potentially moving in next to homeowners.

 It may seem unlikely that would happen, but Edmondson said at least one individual, at one time, ran a property management business from his home; and that it is better not to leave things to chance.

 “From a historic preservation standpoint, our commission had some concerns about the potential for a couple of things,” he explained. “The area has historically been residential. If it is allowed to continue to be commercial, it is possible that those houses could, in a commercial use, compromise the historic integrity, both the fabric as well as the use of that area. The drive down Main Street is an example, where they will put asphalt in the front and make a parking lot, put in a big picture window, and do all that kind of stuff to make it more commercially appealing.”

 Edmondson said homeowners were unaware of the situation.

 “When we reached out to them, they were pretty stunned that they could potentially have a business right next door to them,” he said. “We told them we would be happy to see if we could get this property rezoned back to residential again. They signed a letter in support of the rezone. 

 “In addition to that, the property owners across the street, and further up the street, they are all residential … we got all of their signatures, stating they want the area residential because they were concerned about an intrusion into their neighborhood.”

 Edmondson confirmed that some of the homes are indeed historical and may even serve as candidates for the National Register of Historic Places.

 “None of them are on the national register, but one or two of them would be national register eligible,” he said. “And the others certainly are contributing, so if we ever wanted to do a historic district, all of those properties in there would be contributing if not eligible for the national register.”

 Edmondson suggested that there are enough empty buildings in Weiser and that they should be utilized first.

 “The other motivation for us pushing for this is that we have lots of empty potential properties in our downtown area that are already zoned commercial,” he said. 

 “Why would we want to compete with that by allowing commercial in residential, so it’s as much about protecting the integrity of a residential neighborhood as it is about not undermining the commercial vitality of our downtown.”