City of Weiser rescinds airport rezone request

 A request by the City of Weiser to rezone airport property from A1 agricultural to D2 Industrial has been rescinded.

 City officials made the decision after learning that airports are not allowed in D2-zoned areas per Washington County code.

 “The city decided to rescind its application for rezoning the Weiser Airport after it was discovered that the Weiser Airport is currently in the proper zone for airports,” administrators said in a statement obtained by the Signal American on Monday. “Washington County code 5-4-1 states in part that airports are allowed in A1 agricultural zones as a special use and the airport is currently zoned as A1 agricultural. The special use for the airport is contained in Washington County code Title IX, Chapter 2.”

 A public hearing to discuss the rezone request was scheduled for Monday, Aug. 5 at the Washington County courthouse, but has since been vacated in light of the city’s move to rescind.

 Initially, the request was accepted by planning and zoning based on county code 5-7-2 related to D2 permitted uses. The permitted uses include, “Factory or industrial operations not permitted in other zones.”

 At the time, it made sense to many that the airport be rezoned since it is considered an industrial operation. But it wasn’t until Weiser City Clerk Natasha McDaniel began looking closer at county code that it was discovered airports are, in fact, allowed in another zone, namely A1, which disqualifies it as a D2 permitted use. 

 “The whole thing went south,” said Airport Manager Jim Metzger in a phone interview on Monday. “You can’t have airports in D2 and nobody caught it until Natasha started building a case for rezone. That shot it (rezone request) down.”

 McDaniel, who consulted with city attorney Reece Hrizuk, said it was fortunate county code was ultimately interpreted correctly.

 “I’m really glad we found this out before commissioners made a decision on it,” she said. “If they had approved it, it could have been a problem down the road.”

The animal shelter

 The request for rezone was made months ago, stemmingfrom a bid by the Weiser River Animal Shelter and Rescue (WRASR) to occupy an unused building located at the northeast corner of airport property and within FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) administrative purview.

 As already mentioned, the airport and the structure are located within A1 zoned property. Although the airport is allowed as a special use, kennels are not under county code 5-4-1, which lists, “Livestock and poultry raising, feeding and sale,” as permitted uses, “but not including CAFOs (feedlots), kennels and veterinary or animal hospitals.”

 McDaniel said the zoning will remain as it is for now, which means the animal shelter must research what else can be done to secure the building and operate as intended.

 “We need to rethink what we have tried to do and see what the future holds as far as we can interpret it and just try to move forward,” said WRASR’s John Aegerter. “Right now, it’s all up in the air. It’s not clear what is going to happen. We have to get together soon and chat about it.”

 A critical part of the process, however, was recently resolved quicker than expected. Metzger said he has been in contact with the FAA, which has given him permission to remove the building from airport property. The WRASR needed to address that issue regardless of what happened with the airport rezone.

 “We have already gone through the process to remove that parcel from FAA funding, so the city is free to do anything they want with it now,” he said. “The FAA said it doesn’t care what we do with it. But I believe what they are going to do is allow the shelter to do a rezone only on that piece of ground now that it is no longer a piece of the airport. It’s outside of it, so it should be allowed to be changed.”

 According to Aegerter, the parcel could potentially be zoned D2.

 “We are glad to hear this is a possible approach and now we have to think it through,” he said.

 Some people have misinterpreted the request for rezone as a move solely benefitting the shelter, but McDaniel said it isn’t true.

 “That’s kind of what was frustrating about this whole process because we were trying to rezone the airport for specific reasons, not for the shelter, but it got made into that,” she explained. “It wasn’t for the shelter and I think it got convoluted when we discovered that the zoning was A1.”

 The discovery would never have been made had the WRASR’s interest in the structure not triggered zoning research. Metzger, who always assumed it was zoned D2, found out that it was A1, which didn’t make sense at the time and triggered concern over future growth and building permits.

 “Did the whole issue come up because the shelter wanted to go there? Yes,” McDaniel said. “Is it the only reason we wanted to rezone the airport? No.”