A proposed Grease Monkey store in Boise, Idaho has been met with pushback due to a change in the city’s zoning requirements, reports BoiseDev.
An appeal to construct a new Grease Monkey in the southwest corner of a Fred Meyer parking lot was rejected 5-1 by the Boise City Council last week.
Though the new drive-thru oil change facility would be replacing a vacant, decaying building, new zoning requirements calling for mixed-use, dense development that took effect in Boise this past December were in conflict with the proposed store, the City Council determined.
However, the situation becomes more complicated due to covenants, conditions, and restrictions within the leases for shopping centers like Fred Meyer can contradict zoning requirements in the city.
For example, while the city’s new requirements call for four-story buildings along major transit routes and busy intersections, Fred Meyer’s lease explicitly caps development at one story.
Though Barclay Group—the real estate developer behind the Grease Monkey—had been working on the project for years, the zoning changes this past December has deterred their plans.
The company argued that the two conflicting zoning requirements from the City of Boise and Fred Meyer had made it impossible to develop anything but the Grease Monkey on the site.
An attorney with the group representing Barclay Group, Elizabeth Koeckeritz, added that the project should be allowed to continue under an “alternate form,” which is a special allowance in cases where there are problems in complying with zoning requirements. She added that factors such as a detached sidewalk, landscaping, and other walkable features were incorporated into the facility’s exterior design as well.
The attorney had also made attempts to request Fred Meyer alter their rules in order to comply with city requirements, but denied to do so.
“It’s an abandoned building with people doing drugs in it, so it’s not a good place to be, but that’s not what our zoning code is actually calling for,” said City Council Member Jimmy Hallyburton. “There’s a vision for what we want this area to look like and this isn’t anything like this vision.”
City Council Member Luci Willits was the only one to vote in favor of building the shop.
“This doesn’t need to be four stories,” argued Willits. “This has been an eyesore for four years, it needs parking, it’s a car repair shop and I think we’re missing a tremendous opportunity here to redevelop an area while we wait for something that may or may not come.”
