‘Farmin Flats’ development — now doubled in size — will have to undergo name change

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

The proposed Farmin Flats multi-family apartment project on Church Street will have to change its name, after members of the Farmin family — which is among the most important founding families of Sandpoint — objected to the use of their surname on the development.

From town plats to buildings and even street names, the Farmin family looms large in local history. L.D. and Ella Farmin established a homestead of 160 acres that occupies much of what we now know as downtown Sandpoint in the 1890s, and went on to occupy various local leadership positions in the following decades — from politics and industry, to education and social uplift.

A rendering of phase 1 of the proposed development on Church Street. Courtesy of RAD Architectural Design.

OZ Sandpoint QOZB, LLC., based in Lindon, Utah, is seeking to build a 47-foot-tall, four-floor, 48-unit apartment building with ground-floor commercial space at 413 Church St. — as well as a second phase made public April 22 next door at 417 Church St., which would include another four-story, 45-foot-tall building with about 2,000 square feet of commercial on the ground floor and 41 apartments on the remaining stories. 

The mix of one-bedroom and studio apartments in Phase 1 have been welcomed by some as much-needed downtown housing, though almost all of the more than 50 comments to City Hall have centered on frustration over the development’s exemption from providing parking. However, according to the Phase 2 project narrative, three parking spaces will be established behind the building on the alley. 

A schematic showing Phases 1 and 2 of the proposed development. Image courtesy of RAD Architectural Design.

No documents have yet been made available on the city’s “Current Projects” page detailing the size of the apartments in Phase 2, but the total number of units will be similar in both structures, amounting to 89 in total. According to the developer’s vehicle trip generation letter for Phase 1, the estimated number of morning peak hour trips will be 20, and 19 for peak hour trips in the evening. The letter anticipates 15% of total trips will use on-street parking, with 45% parking in the Idaho Transportation Department lot west of the project on Fifth Avenue, 25% parking in the other ITD lot to the north on Fifth Avenue, and 15% in the city parking lot between Oak and Church streets.

The Phase 2 site plan review checklist indicates that the trip generation letter for that portion of the project will “match close to Phase 1,” essentially doubling the parking and traffic estimates for the overall development.

The furor surrounding the parking element of the proposal is what brought the project’s use of Tammy Farmin’s last name to her attention.

“I caught wind of it through a friend that sent me a text. She was upset they didn’t have parking for this large unit,” she told the Reader in an interview. “She couldn’t understand why our family would support something like that.

“I said, ‘Wow, I had no idea.’ I called my cousin, Cindy, and asked if she knew anything about this. We connected, and she said, ‘You know, I do know about it,’ and had been talking to her daughters. We agreed we’re not comfortable with it.”

OZ Sandpoint representative Scott Harwood told the Reader in an April 21 email, “We are working on changing the proposed name this week. This was nothing more than a placeholder and an attempt to put a name to the project that had some historical significance. We understand the request and will work to have it changed.”

“Who thinks that they can just use somebody’s name, to put on the side of a building and not even reach out, to my knowledge, and ask?” Farmin said, adding that despite the developers’ knowledge of local history, “so what? That doesn’t give you the right to use the name — especially on something that’s so heated.”

As previously reported by the Reader, because of a 2009 code change eliminating minimum parking requirements for downtown development, the soon-to-be-renamed Farmin Flats does not have to provide spaces for its residential and commercial users. 

That has raised concerns among surrounding property owners and residents in general, but the parking regulations are in flux, as the Sandpoint Planning and Zoning Commission recently heard a presentation on the draft Downtown Parking Management Plan that might include offsite parking requirements within the current exempt zone, or payment of an in-lieu fee by developers. 

The final plan is expected to go before the City Council before mid-summer.

Meanwhile, the kerfuffle over Farmin Flats feeds into a wider debate about parking in town, as the city works to rebalance stall usage through a mix of incentives: lifting time limits on three- and four-hour spaces; and disincentives: steering toward paid parking at a number of city-owned facilities and contemplating reintroducing parking meters in the downtown core.

As for the so-called Farmin Flats development, Farmin said, “The whole community is pretty upset about it, and rightly so,” later adding, “[W]e don’t want our name attached to that.”

“They’re taking advantage of zoning that was put into place 10 years ago when the city was trying to encourage development. They just took advantage of it, that’s a lot of units to not have any parking,” she said. “Our family is attached to a lot of good things in Sandpoint. This — I don’t feel this is a good thing.”

Find the full application file and public comments on Farmin Flats at sandpointidaho.gov under “Current Projects” on the Planning and Community Development page.

Additional reporting by Ben Olson.