City revisits rules for shipping container storage


Weiser’s City Council is taking another look at its ordinance pertaining to shipping container storage at the request of Brandon and Andrea Williams, the owners of Williams Storage and Treasure Valley On-Site Storage. Photo by Nancy Grindstaff
By: 
Dylan Brown
Weiser will wade back into the fraught waters of regulating shipping containers within city limits. 
 The Weiser City Council voted to review the zoning code for temporary storage units at the behest of Brandon and Andrea Williams, who own Williams Storage and Treasure Valley On-Site Storage, which have locations around Weiser.
 The Williams recently purchased the former Dishion Storage, which included existing permanent storage units, a home and gravel lot between Fry Foods and the former Ol’ 95 Burger House. The company started moving shipping containers into the lot on E. Sixth St. only to be quickly cited for multiple violations of city code. 
 Weiser is only a couple years removed from a protracted fight over portable storage – a booming business in town deemed an eyesore by some locals.
 “Most of what you see now was grandfathered in at the time,” Mayor Randy Hibberd said. “So those were allowed to be kept, but we tried to make sure that we don’t have storage units all over town.”
 In a letter, the Williams’ asked the city council to allow in more portable containers, which have become the largest part of their business with more than 1,200 units across Idaho and Oregon.
 Shipping containers are weather tight, rodent proof, and easily moved, unlike traditional storage, the Williams argued.
 Portable units are already moving in across the street at the former Dino Storage, which the Williams’ also recently purchased. That site falls under the jurisdiction of Washington County, which has different regulations.
 If the city changes its ordinance, the Williams plan to rent and park shipping containers on the opposite lot, stacking them two high if necessary. If units elsewhere fill up, they plan to ring the property with new, light gray containers to conceal parked vehicles and other stored items from passersby.
 “At the moment we have a lot of vacancies,” the Williams wrote. “So, for the time being, we would like to store empty containers on the property to supply people around the Treasure Valley when they need one.”
 But City Councilman Larry Hogg, who helped write the ordinance, reminded the city council why they limited shipping containers in the first place.
 “We didn’t want to turn into a city of portable storage units,” he said.
 Hibberd noted the proposed storage would be right at the northern “gateway” to town, which has seen major commercial expansion in the last decade.

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Signal American

18 E. Idaho St.
Weiser, ID 83672
PH: (208) 549-1717
FAX: (208) 549-1718
 

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