Hearings Officer Joe Turner held a Jan. 8, 2026 hearing on appeal Z088-25, in which the applicant challenged a county director's decision denying verification of an existing nonconforming commercial office use at 46881 Southeast Highway 26 in Sandy following a March 4, 2024 fire. Turner said he would review the record and relevant case law before issuing a written decision.

County planning staff summarized the staff report and the denial. Staff stated that the application was denied because it could not be shown that the upstairs portion of the building had been in continuous commercial office use and because a 2005 alteration authorizing conversion to office space did not appear to have been lawfully implemented. "The initial decision is denial," staff said. The staff presentation cited Zoning and Development Ordinance provisions on discontinuance (12.0604), verification (12.0605), and restoration after damage (12.0606), and noted that physical restoration must be lawfully commenced within one year of damage (here, by 03/04/2025).

Staff pointed to four principal evidentiary issues: the 2005 conversion approval lacked record evidence of required building, electrical, plumbing or structural permits; utility billing showed a consecutive disruption in water consumption of about 34 months (circa 2010–2013), which staff said was inconsistent with commercial occupancy; code-enforcement photos and a Zillow listing suggested the upstairs had been used as a residence at times; and recent building-code concerns (septic evaluation denial, ingress/egress, and smoke damage) left the county unable to determine fitness for occupancy.

Applicant representative Tyler McDonald argued the record supports continuous use under the 2005 decision and contested the weight given to building-code and enforcement materials. McDonald said the Zillow photos relied on by staff were screenshots of images from 2011, not a 2019 listing, and that those photos show lights, desks and other indicators of occupation. He asked the hearings officer to consider the applicant's timeline, business registrations tied to the address, tax records and photographs as evidence that the upstairs had been used for business purposes and that the nonconforming use was lawfully established in 2005.

Michael Paxton, identified on the record as the property contact, and the applicant argued multiple permit attempts after the fire (two septic permit filings and two building-permit submissions, including one on 02/13/2025) showed efforts to commence lawful restoration; they asked at minimum for partial verification to allow emergency roof repairs. "We are asserting that this has been lawfully established since 2005," Tyler McDonald said.

Matt Roselle, the county's building codes administrator, told the hearing that from a building-code perspective a structure without water can be considered "an unoccupiable structure," and that a change of occupancy (restaurant to office) would typically require permits and related electrical and plumbing approvals. Roselle's remarks framed why staff treated the utility and permit gaps as relevant evidence.

Turner asked the parties to supply additional evidence on identified gaps. He offered a schedule to keep the record open: one week for new county submissions (initial deadline Jan. 15), one additional week for responses (Jan. 22), and a final week for the applicant's closing written argument (Jan. 29). He told the applicant it could ask for a longer tolling period to preserve the statutory decision clock, but that any tolling request must be made in writing by Jan. 15.

The hearing did not produce a final ruling. Turner said he would review the record, applicable case law cited at the hearing and any new materials submitted during the open-record period before issuing a written decision. The record remains open under the schedule Turner announced.