P&Z ponders code changes

SANDPOINT — The Bonner County Planning & Zoning Commission will be discussing proposed amendments to the local land use code when it meets today.

The amendments are slated for a 6:30 p.m. workshop discussion at the Bonner County Administration Building. The discussion is preceded by hearings on unrelated variance and permit requests.

The planning commission is taking up the proposal after the Bonner County Planning Department hosted public meetings in Sagle, Blanchard and Hope to explain the code changes. County commissioners bypassed the planning commission when they began rolling out code amendments earlier this year.

The county commission was poised to adopt the latest round of code changes earlier this month, but many who testified during a well-attended public hearing urged the board to put off implementing the changes until there was more time to review them.

Others, meanwhile, embraced or denounced the changes.

The latest slug of changes are meant to speed and reduce the cost of relatively simple divisions of land, according to Planning Director Milton Ollerton.

The proposed changes to the county’s subdivision ordinance involve adding a procedure called a minor land division allowing for divisions of land into four or fewer lots, extending the current short-plat process to apply to splits resulting in five to 10 lots, reducing the years a family exemption must hold a split parcel from four to two years and other formatting changes.

The proposed draft ordinance can be found on the Planning Department’s section of the county’s website (www.bonnercounty.us).