Board balks on variance

SANDPOINT — The board giveth and the board taketh away.

Bonner County commissioners rescinded their approval Tuesday of a controversial floodplain ordinance variance for a home on Lake Pend Oreille that was expanded without a permit.

Commissioners Cornel Rasor and Lewie Rich approved Dwight and Pamela Sheffler’s variance request in February, but the justifications underpinning the decision were slow to develop.

The board was set to approve the findings and conclusions to support granting the request, but it instead withdrew the approval on a split vote and moved to hold a new public hearing on the variance.

A date for the hearing is pending.

In the meantime, the Shefflers are having a surveyor verify that the home’s bottom-floor elevation is indeed nine-tenths of a foot below the base flood elevation.

“It’s — frankly — an outside hope that there’s an error,” Planning Director Clare Marley told commissioners.

Marley said an elevation certificate was never stamped by a surveyor so it was never deemed final.

The home at issue was built in 1961 and later bought by the Shefflers, who substantially improved the place in 2005 without a building location permit.

At an earlier hearing, Dwight Sheffler testified that they considered bringing the home into compliance, but found that it was too costly and the work would have disturbed the shoreline too much.

Rich and Rasor granted the variance in defense of private property rights and opposition to federal influence on local land use decisions. While sympathetic to those causes, Commission Chairman Joe Young opposed the move because he did not believe the couple qualified for the variance under the county’s rules.

FEMA later advised the county that allowing the variance could cost 250 flood insurance recipients a 5-percent discount on their premiums, though Rasor and Rich continued to track toward granting it.

The abrupt reversal came amid questions about the Shefflers’ final elevation certificate and how many other waterfront landowners have homes which intrude into the floodplain.

“I do have a problem that they could all be subject to the same jeopardy that this one’s been placed in by that base floor elevation,” Rich said.

Waterfront homes built prior to the county’s flood damage prevention ordinances are grandfathered. However, if landowners want to make significant improvements, they are required to adhere to the new development standards.

Rich moved to withdraw the variance and Young seconded the motion. The decision passed 2-1 with Rasor voting against the move.