EVERETT – Planning commissioners are looking to a thick packet of court documents and action taken in other cities to decide whether to more strictly regulate adult businesses in Everett.
Since the City Council temporarily banned new adult businesses in July, the planning commission has heard from residents, most of them vehemently urging stricter regulation of sex-related businesses.
Commissioners have also heard from the City Council, which voted in favor of allowing existing adult shops to stay and not relocate, but against creating a concentrated red-light district.
With this feedback, commissioners must now recommend exactly where in the city to put sex-related businesses.
City planning director Allan Giffen said at the Tuesday night planning meeting that even if current adult businesses remain where they are, the city should provide at least 20 to 30 additional sites where new adult businesses could locate.
Commissioners will next need to decide how far to separate adult shops from each other.
In addition, the commission will decide how far sex shops should be from places such as schools, public parks, churches and residential areas.
Giffen presented two maps at Tuesday’s meeting, one with a 500-foot buffer from such sensitive areas and the other with a 750-foot buffer.
With a larger buffer in place, the only available areas for sex shops would mostly be industrial zones such as those near the Port of Everett and Everett Station, with some commercial areas near Everett Mall and in southwest Everett.
A 500-foot buffer “does free up a few more smaller areas that are commercially viable” on Evergreen Way and north Broadway, Giffen said.
Giffen said the commission legally could make its decision based on what other cities have done.
Before the next hearing on the matter, the commission will study other cities’ assessments on the potential ill effects of adult businesses on a community.The city does not distinguish adult businesses from any other kind of business.
Before it could do that, commissioners would have to agree that sex-related stores generate “adverse impacts” such as crime or decreased property values.
“That has to exist in order to regulate them,” Giffen said. “I want you to review the information for yourselves and make your own conclusions.”
The City Council placed a moratorium on adult businesses after the Taboo Video store in south Everett opened near a day care center and in a residential area.
Reporter Jennifer Warnick: 425-339-3429 or jwarnick@heraldnet.com.
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