TUP issue plays to a packed house

The packed house at Thursday night's planning commission hearing heard passionate testimony on both sides of the Temporary Use Permit (TUP) appeal for Celia Hung's planned use of the vacant lot at the corner of Cascade Avenue and Oak Street.

Planning staff had approved the TUP, but due to high public interest, it was called up for review. Appellant #1 was Celia Hung requesting the granting of the TUP without conditions. Appellant #2 was John Keenan (and Jean Wells Keenan) against the granting of the TUP. Both sides of the appeal drew strong and emotional commentary from the appellants, their representatives, and from the private citizens in attendance.

Since both appellants requested that a seven-day written comment period be made available, the planning commission could not discuss these appeals on Thursday, and will not discuss these appeals again until their regularly scheduled meeting on August 21.

The hearing on this specific application is separate from the discussion now going on with the city council regarding the issue of TUPs and transient vendor permits. Any changes the city makes can only apply to new permits, not to the Hung TUP that reignited the discussion about the appropriateness of a 180-day TUP.

The city has been challenged by the local business community a number of times to do something about the six-month temporary permit, but little to nothing has been done to date, according to those speaking in the hearing on Thursday.

Celia Hung, owner of a long-term lease on the lot in question and owner of the Bend/Sisters Garden RV Resort, addressed the commission by first introducing her "team": Wendie Kellington (a Lake Oswego land-use attorney), and business and marketing director Richard Esterman (a longtime local special-events promoter).

"I hope you will grant the permit, and remove the requirement for individual transient business licenses, and treat this temporary use like any other special event where the event promoted has a city business license," said Hung.

"There will be high-quality events (on the lot) that will cater to citizens of the city, and also seek to attract tourists. They will be interesting because they are special events at special times," said Hung. "I have heard people say that my events would draw people away from permanent business in the city. Nothing could be further from the truth. The relationship is rather symbiotic between my special event and the permanent businesses in the city."

Referring to the quilt show, Hung said, "We were told by many business owners that they had more business this time than ever before. This is because we brought people to the city to shop and eat that would not have otherwise come to the quilt show. Because of my event people stayed at quilt show events."

Hung concluded, "Everything that we handle on site is much better than the quilt show. We provide a much-needed shaded seating area with food and drink services nearby during an exhausting hot day. There is no reason to deny the proposal ... unless the exclusion, the favoritism, and the special breaks have put together an unjust patchwork of quilts in our city."

Jean Wells Keenan spoke in support of husband John Keenan's appeal.

"I did not realize that this kind of a session was going to be an attack on quilt show and myself personally," said a clearly emotional Wells. "I think that it is unfortunate that these people chose to use quilt show as their example for everything."

Wells continued, "I will say that there were more people in town Saturday, and you know why? Because of all the work the quilt show does to advertise an event that has become iconic in this community. Unfortunately, the other event did no advertising, but they certainly reaped the benefit of us bringing 12,000 people to town."

Several others spoke of the "wonderful work" that Hung has done in bringing her local RV park to national recognition.

Local businessmen John Keenan and Chris Wilder once again expressed their conviction that having as many as 91 tents on the Hung site on any given weekend will pull business away from the "brick-and-mortar" merchants downtown, especially during their very short summer earning season. They also pointed out that none of the transient businesses pay property tax or any of the other taxes, fees and employee expenses that are required of a permanent business.

Wilder testified that he asked Esterman to consider doing his event on a weekend other than quilt show or folk festival weekend. According to Wilder, Esterman replied that he wasn't interested in alternative weekends.

Hung's attorney Kellington attacked the propriety of the city codes. She maintained that there was no such thing as a "Special Event," a designation used by the city for major events that take place primarily on public property. Per city planner Eric Porter, the city uses the transient merchant license for events on private property and TUPs for events on public property.

Kellington cited a piece of the city code that says, "An exception shall be granted for the permit fees if the temporary vendor activity is in conjunction with a special event." She maintained that since there were no "Special Events" in the code, everything was a "small s" special event, and therefore Esterman's vendors should have received an exemption from the city's $15,000 in fees (at $100 per license per day).

In each of their statements, Kellington, Esterman and Hung maintained that charging transient merchant fees was in fact a suppression of the appellant's constitutional right to artistic expression.

With emotions running high on both sides of this issue, and legal challenges to the city's code and code enforcement, it is not expected that this specific issue will be resolved quickly or easily - and right behind it are the issues of a potential transient merchant license code change, and a "formula food" definition change.