CRESTVIEW — A local business owner questions whether city codes are clear and evenly enforced after learning that his store violated an ordinance.

The incident raises a larger question about how well city codes match local businesses' needs, he says. 

Crestview Motorsports co-owner Craig Shaw received a code violation notification after he displayed some vehicles across the street from his showroom.

Allen Flanagan, his partner and store manager, said the store’s location — up the block from South Ferdon Boulevard — is hard to spot, and placing a sign close to Ferdon, also the state highway, would be too expensive.

That's why they displayed some of the vehicles across Williams Street.   

The city’s ordinance states “a separate license shall be required for each place” where a company does business, but Shaw said he believes the ordinance isn’t clear.

“As literal as it's written, you can't do business at any location but the address on your business license,” Shaw said. “If you're going to enforce it, enforce it evenly.”

For example, he said, “what about an insurance agent who writes a policy sitting at your kitchen table?”

REWRITING IN THE WORKS

Crestview Code Enforcement Officer Senida Oglesby said city ordinances do cover a range of situations.

“Let’s say you’re an air conditioning repair business,” Oglesby said. “You would need a business tax receipt for your office location only. But the code does not require a business tax receipt for each home where you go repair the equipment. It’s for the office location only.”

Shaw’s company violated the ordinance by using a lot where it wasn’t licensed to do business, according to the code’s phrasing.

“If you take the merchandise to an offsite parcel, you need to get a business tax receipt for that site,” Oglesby said, noting a camper dealership not far from Shaw’s company must have five licenses to cover all of its sales lots.

Obtaining a tax receipt is the first step in conducting business in Crestview, Oglesby said.

“The city would (consider) the zoning and parking requirements” among other criteria, Oglesby said. “If the parcel doesn’t meet the requirements, the owner can’t conduct business there.”

Shaw said he now realizes that using the lot at the corner of Williams and South Ferdon Boulevard to display off-road vehicles involves more than just getting the lot owner’s permission.

But that still doesn’t address the ordinance’s perceived vagueness, he said.

City officials are aware of the code’s deficiencies, Mayor David Cadle said, noting he frequently receives calls from business owners with concerns about codes and enforcement.

The Growth Management Department is evaluating the code, Cadle said.

“City officials are addressing the ordinance and rewriting the ordinance so it’s not so broad,” he said. “When it’s ready, it’ll come back before the (city) council.”

'NOT BUSINESS FRIENDLY'

Business has evolved a lot since Craig Shaw's father, Foy, a founding Crestview Area Chamber of Commerce member, started Shaw Moving and Storage in the 1940s.

“It (the code) just doesn’t fit today’s business model. To me it seems old. Everybody is digital. People work all over, not just in their office or shop,” Shaw said. “They’re mobile. I should be able to be licensed and then to do business anywhere in the city.”

The broadly phrased code makes it easy to unintentionally violate, She said.

“If I'm mobile or I'm bringing a demo unit to your location, I'm in violation of the code,” he said.

As a leader in the business community, Shaw says he regularly hears from out-of-town business owners who believe it’s hard to open shop in Crestview, and ordinances like the one his company allegedly violated are among the reasons for the perception.

“City officials don’t understand when people come in and say, ‘You’re not business friendly,’” Shaw said. “You have things like this and it creates a perception that Crestview’s not business friendly.”

The status quo doesn't have to remain, City Council President Shannon Hayes said, adding he welcomes Shaw's and other citizens' input about local ordinances.

“One of our duties is, if we think there's a change that needs to be made for the betterment of our citizens, we need to do it,” he said.

“We're here to serve the citizens, and if we think it's for the betterment of the city, we as a group of council members can look into changing an ordinance.”

While the code is being addressed, Oglesby said she will continue helping businesses comply with existing laws.

“Our job is to educate citizens and business owners, let them know that they’re in violation and provide them with the code or Florida statute that covers that,” she said.

Section 18-29 of Crestview's Code of Ordinances, which governs business locations, states: “Any person desiring to engage in any exhibition, trade, business, vocation, occupation or profession for which a license is required shall designate in the application for license the place where the exhibition, trade, business, vocation, occupation, calling or profession is located.

"A separate license shall be required for each place at which any exhibition, trade, business, vocation, occupation, calling or profession is carried on."

BUSINESS TAX RECEIPTS

Obtaining a business tax receipt is the first step to conduct business in Crestview, Code Enforcement Officer Senida Oglesby says. The Planning and Zoning, Building, and Crestview Fire departments review the application.

An application can be rejected for several reasons, but the most common is a business that wants to open in a section with conflicting zoning. “The city would (consider) the zoning and parking requirements,” among other criteria, Oglesby said.

Sometimes, a business’ supplemental address doesn’t meet code requirements. “If the parcel doesn’t meet the requirements, they can’t conduct business there,” Oglesby said. “You don’t want people parking out in the streets, and you don’t want people crossing the street to get to the office.”

THE ORDINANCE SAYS…

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Do Crestview's business codes deter growth?

CRESTVIEW — The City Council has unanimously agreed to extend the city’s traffic fee waiver four months to allow a required traffic study to be completed.

But City Councilman Bill Cox said that’s enough.

“That's going to be three years and four months,” Cox said. “I can't agree to extending them any longer than that. If you put something on sale without any kind of deadline, the mindset is ‘You can always buy something on sale.’”

The fees — which, until waived to stimulate development during the recent recession, put more than $600,000 into the city’s roads coffers — have not been collected for three years.

If the council allowed the waiver to expire, on Jan. 1 the city could resume collecting the fees, which help compensate for additional traffic development contributes to local roads.

Whether fees are waived or not, Growth Management Director Teresa Gaillard said, by law, the traffic study must be performed anyway. If the city chooses to do away with the impact fee entirely, it then needs to revise the comprehensive plan, Gaillard said.

Public Works Director Wayne Steele supports the fee because it helps compensate the city for extra traffic on its roads. Right now, he said, the section of State Road 85 by Wal-Mart is beyond its designed capacity and can’t support further development.

“The (Florida Department of Transportation) can actually deny any access to Highway 85 (for new development) because we'd be in violation of our ordinance,” Steele said at Monday evening’s City Council meeting. “They would say we have to make improvements before they allow us to add any new development that will add more trips to 85.”

Councilman Doug Faircloth said he favored reinstating the fee, but with a slight change.

“I would move we change the name of the impact fees, and there's a reason. There are some businesses that want to come to the city and they don't want to have to pay a traffic impact fee,” he said.

“I would propose we call them infrastructure maintenance and construction fees.”

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview City Council extends impact fee waiver

CRESTVIEW — The public Monday night got a good look at several façade renderings that led to the stately, six-columned design accepted by the Historical Preservation Board for the new Okaloosa County courthouse.

"I felt we had a consensus at the meeting (with the board) for the columns, the use of brick, the opening of the windows, the stair towers," architect David Alsop said during the presentation.

Some of the designs included a hipped roof on top of the central section as well as the courthouse's side wings, and two versions had ornamental brackets along the roof line and stair towers.

Both features didn't sit well with the preservation board, which felt they didn't follow the spirit of the original 1918 courthouse originally on the site.

"It was the consensus that the brackets should go," Alsop said.

CLASSIC DESIGN

The approved design keeps the hipped roofs on the wings, as well as brick cladding and tall, but not floor-to-ceiling, windows.

Alsop said the nearly 70,000-square-foot building's floor plan is essentially designed, but was not presented as the exterior façade was the focus of the public presentation.

While the Sam Marshall Architects design has classic elements and massing to compliment Crestview's historic downtown, it will be energy efficient and handicapped accessible, Alsop said.

Modern features include impact resistant, fixed glass, high energy efficient windows with aluminum frames and standing seam metal roofs on the wings.

"It has to be built to last 50 or 60 years, because that's how often you get to replace a courthouse," Alsop said.

SECURITY

Unlike the current courthouse, in which judges, prisoners and the public use the same entrances and hallways, judges will have their own entrance in the new building, which will also have a secure sally port for bringing in and removing prisoners.

The courthouse's main entrance will face downtown Crestview, with no entrance on the U.S. Highway 90 side.

While most residents were cautiously complimentary of the design, one man was not satisfied.

"I have to say it but this doesn't look like a courthouse. It looks like a library or something," he said. "And the site is wrong. A good site is across from the Winn-Dixie. As this city grows and the parking problem grows, downtown, it can't grow."

DEMOLITION

Okaloosa County Public Works Director Jason Autrey said he expects the current building to be vacated by February, allowing asbestos mitigation and then demolition to begin immediately afterward.

"It's not as simple as taking that Lego structure you built on your living room floor and running over it with your foot," Autrey said.

Construction of the new courthouse is expected to take about 16 to 18 months, depending on the weather, he said.

For security reasons, court functions will have to be temporarily relocated to the courthouse in Fort Walton Beach, though some clerk of court services will remain in Crestview, possibly in the Brackin Building on Wilson Street, Autrey said.

"We will have some services in the north end," Autrey said, especially clerk of court functions.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview courthouse exterior designs presented

CRESTVIEW — A quick between-meetings discussion in the city council chamber resolved a potential sticking point in an interlocal agreement between the city and the county to expedite replacing the Okaloosa County courthouse.

Prior to a workshop before Monday evening's City Council meeting, county board of commissioners Chairman Nathan Boyles presented a draft memorandum of understanding that would allow the county to handle all aspects of the project, including inspecting plans and on-site construction details to assure code compliance.

That didn't sit well with Crestview building official Jonathon Bilby and Fire Chief Joe Traylor.

CITY INSPECTORS

Bilby, who inspects building sites to assure codes are met, requested the council to vote against the request "so I can do my job as I've been charged with doing."

Traylor said legally his department is obligated to perform inspections for fire code compliance.

 "The authority to enforce the fire code rests solely with the fire department, per state statute," Traylor said. When the project is complete, "the Crestview Fire Department is required to provide fire protection."

Boyles said the agreement as written was simply a way to streamline the demolition of the current 1955 courthouse and expedite construction of its replacement.

"At the end of the day, what we should all focus on is getting this project done as quickly and efficiently as possible for the benefit of all our citizens," Boyles said.

COMPROMISE

Mayor David Cadle urged the city and county work together on the project.

"We need to get past this competition between the county and city," he said. "Let's work something out that's a compromise."

After the workshop adjourned, Cadle, Traylor and Boyles held a brief discussion and agreed that the fire department would fulfill its obligation to perform fire inspections.

The City Council agreed with the plan, noting the agreement already made provision for Bilby's department to augment county inspectors as needed, for which the city would be reimbursed.

"I think we're of the consensus we go with the changes to the agreement with the fire department added, and go with it, and to maintain the building inspector under the purview of the county," city Council President Shannon Hayes summarized.

Boyles assured the council there were no hard feelings and appreciated the city's cooperation.

"There is not problem. This is working things out before there are issues," Boyles said. "This is a way to streamline the project. My take is, it doesn't make a hill of beans bit of difference to me who does the inspections. I just want a quick and efficient process."

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview, Okaloosa officials compromise to expedite courthouse project