Kootenai County adopts new land-use code

COEUR d’ALENE — After more than two years of tweaking and testimony, Kootenai County has a new Land Use and Development Code.

County commissioners unanimously approved the code after a two-hour public hearing and meeting attended by about 50 residents on Monday night at the county's Administration Building.

"None of us are getting everything we want," Commissioner Dan Green said before he voted, adding that is actually a good thing because the document aims to strike a balance between allowing some uses that weren't permitted before and being respectful of neighbors and the environment.

"I want to applaud you (residents) and staff for your time on this."

The new code will become effective as soon as next Tuesday's business meeting when commissioners are expected to sign the ordinance.

The code consolidates all the land-use and development codes into one document with one table of contents, eliminating overlap and superfluous and conflicting language. The intent is to make it more user-friendly for residents to find out how the code works.

Kootenai County's subdivision regulations date back to 1971 and zoning regulations 1973.

There have been amendments since then, but nothing that pulls everything together for a useful development code under one umbrella.

Wedding venues was the last major lingering concern expressed by residents who opposed the code before it was approved.

Wedding uses are not permitted in the current code, but will be with a conditional-use permit (CUP) under the new code.

"A CUP is by no means a granted sure thing; it's a process," said David Callahan, the county's community development director who has been working on the code since he was hired. "It's an opening of the door to allow people to apply, whereas it was not possible in the past."

Callahan said the CUP process will allow neighbors to weigh in on the proposal. Multiple residents at the hearing said they have concerns that weddings can be or are noisy and held late at night, infringing on their rural lifestyle.

"I have trouble with the dust as it is with normal traffic," said Deborah Rose, who lives in the Athol area.

Callahan said residents holding weddings on their properties will need to apply for a CUP to come into compliance with the code. Those who have been holding such events prior to 1973 will be grandfathered in and not need a CUP.

Commissioners bantered whether to allow those holding weddings after 1973 to be grandfathered in, but later elected to not allow that after residents said that would reward those who haven't been following the law.

Commissioners last month deliberated and instructed staff to add language to the code that allows for weddings in the county under certain conditions, including the owner of the property must be living on-site.

The condition was supported because, if the owner is living on-site, the county can hold that person accountable more easily if the event gets out of hand and there are complaints by neighbors based on noise, parking and other factors.

"Unfortunately, a few people abuse it by running it as a commercial venture and don't have skin in the game (by living on site)," Green said.

"Things are much different with the owners on-site."

As part of the code process, commissioners earlier this year also approved a new conditional-use permit designation for resort lodges, conference centers and guest ranches.

Carla Woempner, a Harrison resident and director of the North West Property Owners Alliance, spoke in favor of the code.

"It's not perfect, but it's a far cry from the ULUC (Unified Land Use Code)," she said. "It's time to move on to (updating) the comprehensive plan."

The county hired Texas-based consultant Kendig Keast Collaborative more than two years ago to develop the ULUC, but that was scrapped in favor of updating the code in-house. ULUC foes said that proposal was flawed because it didn't respect the primacy of property rights under Idaho law.

Rand Wichman, who represented lakeshore property owners and real estate groups, said most of the concerns by those groups were worked out during the process. Wichman said the result will mean increased flexibility to lake property owners as restrictions have been overly broad.

A common complaint expressed by residents during the code update process is that there are already too many regulations and the 373-page document needs to be condensed even further. One resident on Monday suggested the commissioners hold off making a decision even longer until two new commissioners come on board in January.

"Some people are anti-regulatory until there's something next door that's affecting them," Green said. "They say that people should be able to do what they want on their property until there's an asphalt batch plant coming next door and then they are not too happy."