At the Maple Valley City Council’s April 16 meeting, Mayor Bill Allison did something that you rarely see a politician do.

Very frankly and candidly, he addressed several business owners who own property within what’s known as the northwest quadrant who were in the audience, telling them that he hopes they are eventually bought out and different types of businesses replace them.

The City Council is set to vote on the zoning code for the northwest quadrant, which is part of a larger long-term planning piece called the Four Corners Subarea plan, in May. In the meantime, there has been a debate over whether certain businesses such as automotive repair should be classified as conforming, with a possibility of a 50 percent expansion, or whether they should nonconforming.

The Planning Commission has recommended that businesses be nonconforming, which means they will be allowed to remain in operation but will not be able to expand. Some of the business owners, such as Leslie Westover, have insisted their businesses will have a much harder time getting a loan if they are nonconforming.

Allison’s remark, however, revealed what’s really at the heart of the issue.

The squabble over zoning and land use is actually a debate over the different visions people have for the city’s identity.

It’s a predicament many cities have grappled with, but Maple Valley’s situation is unique.

Traditionally, a city has an original street, a main street, from which growth and expansion stems from.

Bellevue and Issaquah, for example, were once rural bedroom communities like Maple Valley, yet they both had main streets which acted as the center of town. I grew up on Bellevue’s second Main Street, located on the east side of Interstate 405, and drive through Front Street in Issaquah where the historic district is located as a part of my daily commute.

In some ways, however, Maple Valley more closely resembles an ancient Irish settlement than small town America. Before the cultural influence of the Danes, the Anglos or the Normans, the bucolic Irish had no town center, per se, but a collection of farms and homes which formed the local community. Dublin, for example, was created by the invading Danes and introduced the concept of a town center to the rest of the country.

Maple Valley has other attributes which distinguish it from other former small towns.

State Route 169 runs down the middle of the city and has been there since before it was incorporated, effectively preventing its use as a main street. It’s a problem the city of Sultan also suffers from due to U.S. Route 2.

Essentially, Maple Valley is looking to create a main street to define its future identity, which is unusual. Typically, a city looks to its main street or historic district as a source of inspiration and history. For Black Diamond, it’s (the other) Baker Street, where the old railroad station and now home to the Historical Society stands.

When I was a student at Eastern Washington University, there was a big push to renovate and revitalize downtown Spokane, which had acquired a reputation for being a hub for the homeless population.

This included changing the name of the Clemmer Theater in 2006 to the Bing Crosby Theater.

One of the best examples of a town redefining itself is Leavenworth, which transformed from a dying logging community into a Bavarian tourist attraction.

But with all of these cities, there was a “main street” or district to start with. That’s where Maple Valley starts to run into problems. Due to its decentralization, there is no “heart” of the community.

Maple Valley High School, where the Historical Society is located, is not even within the city limits but remains in unincorporated King County.

It’s hard to have a city’s source of civic pride come from a place that’s technically not even a part of the city or in a convenient location.

Someday, Maple Valley may be the next big city, and another small rural town will act as the bedroom community.

But before that, it’s going to need a main street. The Legacy Site, located in the Four Corners Subarea Plan, is intended to be the town center the city never had.

And this is where a second problem comes into play. There is not a single, unified vision for what residents want Maple Valley to look like in 10 years, which has resulted in a bloodless war between separate factions with competing visions.

There are those who want to preserve Maple Valley’s former rural culture and sense of community, which might be affected by both growth and changes due to the Subarea Plan.

They’re afraid that these changes will cause the city to lose many of the appealing qualities and traditions that they have come to cherish.

Then there are those who feel Maple Valley has outgrown its rural identity and must move beyond merely acting as a bedroom community. There are also people who want to bring in the conveniences they had to give up to move here.

Next month, the council will decide whether the businesses in the northwest quadrant are a part of the city’s “main street” vision or not.