Council approves planning commission docket for 50 development-code updates, adds neighborhood-commercial item

The Moses Lake City Council on Tuesday approved the planning commission’s docket of proposed amendments to the comprehensive plan and unified development code, allowing staff and the commission to draft specific code language and hold subsequent hearings. The planning commission recommended roughly 50 topics, and the council approved the docket unanimously with the addition of a new item to study small-scale neighborhood commercial uses in residential areas. Senior planner Nathan Pate told the council the docket is a work plan: inclusion on the docket authorizes staff and the planning commission to draft and hold hearings on specific code amendments but does not itself adopt regulatory text. The list of topics ranges from accessory dwelling units and administrative variances to industrial landscaping, standards for cargo containers, drive-thru standards in the downtown core, allowances for short-term rentals in ADUs, and clarified subdivision and binding-site-plan standards. Pate said the planning commission had held at least two workshops and a public hearing on the list. Council members discussed a variety of items during the joint study session. Topics called out by staff included potential allowance for short-term rentals in accessory dwelling units, revised parking and surfacing allowances for mini-storage in industrial zones, updated electric-vehicle charging credits, clearer ADU setback rules, and a proposal to reintroduce small-scale neighborhood commercial standards to the development code to match the comprehensive plan’s policy language. Planning commissioners and staff said many items are technical clarifications or code cleanups; others will require more substantial policy work. Council member motion language authorized staff to continue work on the listed items and to add item 51 for neighborhood commercial uses; the council approved the docket and the addition unanimously. Staff and the planning commission will return with draft code language and separate public hearings on any proposed amendments.