Hearing set for P&Z code changes

SANDPOINT — Proposed land use code amendments recommended for approval by the Bonner County Planning & Zoning Commission will be taken up by the board of county commissioners on Wednesday, May 23.

The hearing is scheduled to start at 1:30 p.m. in the Bonner County Administration Building at the corner of U.S. Highway 2 and Division Avenue.

The code changes are the low-hanging fruit picked by the planning commission during a public hearing conducted last month. The code changes include allowing agricultural processing uses and allowing gravel pits in industrial zones, in addition to clarifying land divisions greater than 20 acres can be administratively reviewed, rather than subjected to the public-review process.

Other more controversial code changes which P&Z remanded back to itself for further review include increasing codified administrative exceptions from 1 foot to 10 percent on setbacks and increasing administrative exceptions from 2 to 5 percent on lot size and subdivision design. Administrative variances of up to 30 percent could be considered or subjected to public review depending on the response of neighboring landowners.

The county is also proposing amnesty on certificates of compliance on substandard parcels created after 2008, the last time the county conducted a major update of its land use code.

The administrative exceptions and amnesty clause are the subject of a P&Z hearing on Wednesday. The hearing starts at 6 p.m. at the county’s EMS/Multi-use facility near the corner of U.S. Highway 95 and Dufort Road.

The code changes were not entirely embraced during the April public hearing, with some charging that they represented granular-level misunderstandings about the 2008 code update and land use code in general, although a few residents testified in favor of them because they were seen as an easing of the regulatory burden on landowners in Bonner County. The code changes were developed by the Bonner County Planning Department at the behest of the county commission, which has been pushing for the last couple of years to make land use codes less restrictive.

The changes have also emerged as fodder during the midterm elections in Bonner County. They are being advocated by incumbent county commissioners Glen Bailey and Dan McDonald.

“That plan needs to be updated and brought into alignment,” Bailey said during a candidate forum this month.

Bailey is being challenged for the Republican nomination by Steven Bradshaw, who said he would dispense with land use regulation altogether if he had his way. Steve Lockwood, a Democrat who’s challenging McDonald in the general election, argued that the appeal of the code changes puts a lampshade over the fact that it penalizes landowners who followed development rules and rewards those who didn’t.

“It sounds appealing, but it doesn’t work,” said Lockwood, who contends existing codes are an important bulwark in protecting the attributes that make Bonner County a desirable place to live.

Carol Kunzeman, who’s challenging McDonald for the GOP nod in the primary, said existing codes protect both buyers and sellers in the rebounding real estate market.

“Years ago, you were a contractor if you had a dog and a pickup truck,” she said during the forum.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.