Midway council work session reviews Main Street C-2/C-3 uses, leans to limit car washes and big-box retail

Midway City Council convened a work session to review what types of businesses should be allowed in the town’s C-2 and C-3 commercial zones along Main Street, with council members and planning staff debating how to preserve a walkable, vibrant downtown while allowing necessary services.

Speaker 5, the planner leading the packet review, said the general plan envisions Main Street as “a distinctive shopping and business area emphasizing it as an attractive meeting place and staging area for festivals,” and urged the council to select uses that support that vision. Councilors discussed whether to create an additional commercial category (a so-called C-1) or instead limit certain uses to upper floors so ground-level storefronts remain active.

A central technical question was retail size. Staff said the current code caps retail and grocery at 25,000 square feet; council noted the existing market is about 22,000 square feet and discussed lowering the threshold to prevent big-box stores from locating in the core. “This was written the way it is to keep a big box out of Midway,” Speaker 5 said during the exchange.

Councilors signaled consensus on removing several nuisance or space‑consuming uses from the C-3 core. Speaker 5 recommended taking car washes and auto-detailing out of the C-3 code because of noise and safety concerns for nearby residences, and the body agreed to cross those entries out of the list under review. The group also discussed limiting gas stations and new/used vehicle sales on Main Street; several members said the town likely does not need additional gas stations in the core.

Speakers emphasized the difference between retail and service uses. Several councilors proposed allowing service businesses such as printing, engraving, or small clinics only when a visible retail component or showroom is present, or by locating those services on upper floors. The council discussed making day cares conditional in C-2 and removing them from C-3 to address traffic and drop‑off concerns, and debated whether mortuaries and wedding chapels should remain in C-2 but not C-3.

Staff clarified how legal nonconforming uses would be handled: an existing business retains its use unless it is discontinued for 365 days; an ownership change alone does not terminate nonconforming status. The planner also reminded the council that state code limits arbitrary denials of conditional uses, so the council must craft reasonable conditions (for example, safety and traffic mitigation) rather than rely solely on conditional status as a denial tool.

There were no formal motions or recorded votes during the work session; the meeting was explicitly framed as direction to staff and a preliminary review. Speaker 5 asked councilors to email additional suggested uses or edits; staff will incorporate the direction and return the refined code language and maps for future work and a subsequent council meeting.

The meeting included brief procedural items and the introduction of Officer Bell (Speaker 6), who described scheduling and patrol plans for Midway. The council ended the session noting they would continue the conversation at a future work meeting and later a formal council meeting where any code changes would be adopted through the town’s ordinance process.