BLYTHEWOOD – A loophole in the Town’s code of ordinances has paved the way for the owner of Grace Coffee, a vendor housed in a small turquoise and white mobile home on Main Street in downtown Blythewood, to do, on Monday evening, what no other business in town has been able to do – receive a certificate of occupancy (COA) without meeting the Town’s architectural review standards. The business owner, Matt Beyer, did not attend the Board of Architectural Review (BAR) meeting.
It appears the Town’s ordinance regulating architectural review in the Town Center District does not have well-defined regulations for mobile vendors.
“We were asked to give a COA without guidelines,” BAR Vice Chairman Jim McLean told The Voice. “We (the BAR) did not want to do that because a COA is permanent. We grappled with it, and we did all we could do, considering the Town has no architectural review standards in place for mobile vendors,” McLean said. “The Town was caught off guard.”
Instead, the BAR agreed to grant a one-year conditional COA to the business to give the Town Council time to draw up standards for mobile vendors.
At issue is the definition of ‘structure’ in the Town’s code of ordinances.
“Structure’ is very broadly defined in the code, yet this mobile vendor is a ‘structure,’ and because it is in the Town Center District, it must have a COA from this Board for its exterior appearance,” The Town’s Planning Consultant Michael Criss told the Board.
While brick and mortar buildings in the Town Center District must adhere to guildelines for paint color, lighting, whirlygigs and other exterior architectural features, Grace Coffee was not required to meet any of those standards, Criss said.
However, McLean said the coffee vendor’s COA is based on how it currently stands and that it cannot make further (substantive) changes in its appearance going forward without coming back to the BAR.
Newly installed Board Chairwoman Pam Dukes then asked how the sign allowances would be applied to Grace Coffee.
That, too, turned out to favor the vendor over the town’s brick and mortar businesses.
“It’s clear what the regulations are for permanent structures that are affixed to the ground,” Criss said. “The landlord gets one monument sign freestanding out in the front yard and one wall sign on the facade facing the street.”
Those signs, according to the Town’s code must meet specific size and quantity guidelines.
“But it’s not crystal clear what the sign limitations are on a mobile unit such as a trailer,” Criss said.
Grace Coffee usually has four signs displayed – one at each entrance, one on the trailer and a menu sign in front of the trailer.
“Suppose they were frying chicken in there,” McLean asked, referencing a discussion the Board had earlier in the meeting with Kentucky Fried Chicken officials who are looking to make major exterior renovations of the KFC in downtown Blythewood.
“I’m trying to go back and grab the fairness. We just turned down Kentucky Fried Chicken about what they can and can’t do (with signage),” McLean said, pointing out that brick and mortar businesses in the Town are held to higher standards.
The discussion has been ongoing ever since Grace Coffee pulled in to town last December and set up shop in the parking lot of Bits and Pieces consignment store.
“When we initially talked with them (Grace Coffee), they said they were going to take the trailer away each night. But now it sits there,” Mayor J. Michael Ross told Council in January. “It’s another example of how a vending stand comes in and is just left there. It’s frustrating.”
At the February meeting, Beyer added another dimension to the mobility issue, telling Council members that the stand was no longer mobile, that it could not be moved.
During the coming year, prior to the expiration of Grace Coffee’s one-year COA, the issue of standards for mobile vendors is expected to come before the Planning Commission for recommendation to Town Council.
