County P&Z to revisit comp plan |
| February 28, 2013 |
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After re-electing proud new father Matt
Cossalman chair and John Cranor co-chair, and by
unanimous vote to stay with the long-established
meeting schedule, the Boundary County Planning
and Zoning Commission agreed, also unanimously,
to revisit a document long in the making, the
Boundary Count Comprehensive Plan, so as to
amend it. By Idaho code, every county and municipality in the state is required to draft a comprehensive plan, looking objectively at the resources of the jurisdiction and drafting goals to guide land use law by which to attain them. It is a document deemed so essential that state law requires its review every 10 years. Boundary County set out on the process of a comprehensive review in 2005, after booming land prices proved the plan adopted in 1997, which seemed good for neighbors, but proved ineffective in staving off speculators, many drawn by our neighborly laws, but who didn't come to be neighborly. Residents expressed outrage. With the dedicated help of more than 100 citizens of Boundary County, facts were gleaned and conclusions reached. Because we are a contentious bunch, it was a process that took three years ... and it didn't make anyone happy; it was, county commissioners deemed, the best we could do at the time. In the way of the State of Idaho, a comprehensive plan review is not a light undertaking; after hearing the facts and the voices of citizens and adopting the plan, a resolution, the elected board of county commissioners has to consider whether or not the law it guides, the Zoning and Subdivision Ordinance, is sufficient. In our case, it wasn't. It would take an additional four years of work and controversy to adopt a new law of land. A lot had changed in between. The county sued in a land use decision regarding a gravel pit, learned by an Idaho Supreme Court ruling that Boundary County's land use law on "special uses," allowing consideration of anything, was not proper; it didn't offer sufficient protection or certainty to a land owner that what I put here shan't be damaged by what my neighbor might put there. That decision pretty much negated much of the two subjective chapters of the Comp Plan; 13 and 14; Land Use and Implementation, both of which tell how land use law should be structured. In response to the Supreme Court decision, Boundary County did away altogether with the "special" use, something the comp plan is predicated on, but never looked back at the Comp Plan, the "constitution" on which the ordinance is founded, a plan outdated, in its legislative parts, not long after it was adopted. The ordinance was written to account for new state law. The planning and zoning commission isn't launching a comprehensive plan review, but an amendment to bring it in better line with the ordinance adopted and to bring it in better line with new court land use rulings. "It would be wrong," they said, "to put a fair county land use decision at risk because our ordinance isn't in line with a comp plan that was outdated even as it was adopted." The county planning and zoning commission will hold a workshop at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, March 7. to begin the process of writing amendments to the legislative sections of the Comp Plan, Chapters 13-14. While the special meeting will be public, it should not be confused with a public hearing; you can sit and watch, but unless you have something to say that the commission agrees to hear, your voice will remain silent. Written comment is and will be accepted. Before anything can change, though, your voice will be heard; once P&Z finishes writing the application for amendment, public hearing, during which all who would speak will be heard, will be held. If P&Z stands behind the application, it will be forwarded to count commissioner, who will hold at least one additional hearing. To find out more, call (208) 267-7712. |