The city of Grand Coulee passed an “emergency” moratorium on the location of mini-storage units at a specially called meeting last Thursday night.

The special city council meeting was triggered by a person from out of town who wanted to pursue the establishment of mini-storage units in the building that was occupied by the Variety Store until it closed this fall.

The ordinance stated that to allow storage units in the Variety Store building would “hinder the location of other revenue generating commercial businesses and be detrimental to the appearance and financial viability of the city.”

The city receives sales tax revenue on retail businesses in the city, but not from storage units.

The ordinance explains that the city is currently going through revisions to its Comprehensive Plan and that a goal of the city was to identify locations where storage units could be located.

The hastily passed ordinance specifies that the city will hold a public hearing on the matter at 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 19. Citizens can appear at that meeting to provide input to the city.

The moratorium, according to the ordinance, will be in effect until May 30, 2018, or it will be terminated upon the adoption of permanent regulations governing the location of commercial mini-storage businesses or operations.

The May 30 end date matches the date that the city has to get its changes to its Comprehensive Plan to the state.

The moratorium establishes that “the city shall not allow the filing of, or accept any application for, a business license or permit, building permit, tenant improvement, subdivision, short subdivision, site plan review, or any other development approval established by the Grand Coulee Municipal Code and for any establishment, building, land, structure, or land use in which any commercial mini-storage business or other storage-related business is proposed.”

The ordinance states: “The city council hereby finds and declares that an emergency exists which necessitates that this ordinance becomes effective immediately.”

The emergency meeting lasted about five minutes with all council members present.