With Stimson project, zoning, not history, is the main issue

The Athens Planning Commission's Jan. 11 ruling on a proposal to build student apartments on the site of the old One-Stop Carryout building on Stimson Avenue had me twisting one way and then another.

Initially, I thought folks were making way too much of the historical value of the former brickyard stable that eventually served as an alcohol carryout for several decades (currently the BellaVino wine and beer shop). If I were to place historical value on the building, it would memorialize the building's service as Sutton's One-Stop, an establishment that provided my dorm friends and me with an unlimited source of beer and wine during out two years on OU's East Green in the '70s.

But as it happens, the building's historical value is irrelevant to the case at hand. Rather, an important zoning issue is at stake, and one that could determine whether the city's zoning laws can be taken seriously, or indeed serve any purpose at all.

The Athens Planning Commission on Jan. 11 voted 3-2 to approval local businessman Ric Wasserman's plan to tear down the old One-Stop building, and replace it with 18 "luxury" student apartments. To satisfy regulations for the B-3 general business zone where the lot is located, Wasserman proposed putting a tenant parking garage on the ground floor. In the business zone, a commercial use is required on the ground floor. Lest you conclude the obvious, that required parking for student tenants is not a commercial use, Wasserman had a rabbit jump out of his hat, with the city's code director basically saying, "Sure it is."

In agreeing with this tortured interpretation of the zoning code, the three citizen members of the Planning Commission – chair Nicholas Bittner, Harry Kaneshige and R.J. Sumney – had to affirmatively ignore a requested legal opinion from the office of city Law Director Pat Lang, as well as the opinions of the two dissenting members, Mayor Paul Wiehl and Service-Safety Director Paul Horan Moseley.

In Lang's opinion, as voiced by city Prosecutor Lisa Eliason at the Jan. 11 Planning Commission meeting, the city code requires Wasserman to have one on-site parking space for each of his 18 tenants. As such, the parking requirement is intrinsically linked to the residential uses on the upper floors, and can't be considered a separate commercial use.

Wasserman, however, went forward with his plans based upon the different interpretation from city Code Director John Paszke, who said he believes parking is clearly permitted as a principal use in a B-3 zone.

In a Planning Commissioner meeting on Jan. 4, Paszke told planners that other buildings in the city's business zones have been approved based upon defining parking as a commercial use.

"(The code) does not say what is to be required on the first floor," Paszke told the board, arguing that this means that anything other than residential use is permitted there.

As a newspaper editor, I have the luxury to step away from the legal mumbo-jumbo and resort to basic logic and common sense (not that I confine myself to basic logic and common sense in every, or even most, cases).

Let's assume that the city had a reason for putting Stimson Avenue in a business zone, and that requirements within a business zone are drafted with some specific purpose or goal. Why would a city want to require buildings in a business zone to restrict their ground floors to commercial uses?

My educated guess is that it's in a municipality's interest to promote and encourage vibrant commercial or retail areas, places where shops, services and offices are concentrated. This benefits citizens, who don't need to drive all over creation to accomplish multiple shopping or service tasks; helps businesses, which attract more shoppers and patrons when they're joined with other attractive retail and office uses; and benefits the city as a whole, where centralized shopping districts are always preferable to hit-and-miss retail and offices.

In keeping with these assumptions, it's not a stretch to conclude that a block of pavement with lines drawn upon it, whose only purpose is to provide a resting place for the vehicles of tenants living above, doesn't achieve any of the aforementioned goals of a business zone.

If the space provided parking for customers or patrons of nearby businesses, yes, it should qualify in the B-3 zone, but in this particular case, the parking isn't intended for any commercial use.

So the question becomes, why maintain a business zone that doesn't encourage or serve business?

The one part of this debate that I've really struggled with is how it affects the owner of BellaVino, who's been trying to sell the struggling business, and was relieved when she found a buyer.

If the issue solely involved the debatable historical value of an old stable building (whose builders probably never dreamed it someday would become a historical icon), I'd say let the business transaction go through, tear down the old stable, and put up those student apartments. If you want late 19th/early 20th century, tossed-off service buildings, go spend a day on the Ridges. But I do think that the integrity of the city's business zones, and the future of Stimson Avenue as a viable business district, are principles worth fighting for.