Planning commission seeks public input on land use
SANDPOINT — The Bonner County Planning Commission’s proposed land use map has raised concerns with some community members.
The commission said the map is a work in progress and is seeking public comment to help shape how the county designates land for future growth. So far there has been little public input, with the Dec. 3 workshop — the first of several — garnering few participants.
However, Bonner County Planning Director Jake Gabell said the turnout was roughly what he expected. To offset the lack of attendance at the first workshop, the commission added a final workshop that will also take place in Sandpoint to allow the public another opportunity to provide input.
“This one was kind of short notice,” Gabell said. “We added one more (workshop) in Sandpoint, just to circle back and get people around this area another chance to comment.”
The comprehensive plan is supposed to be changed every eight to 10 years, according to Planning Commission Chairman Allan Songstad. The last comprehensive plan update was in 2005. According to Gabell, the delay in creating a new comprehensive plan is largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The planning commission started the process to update the comprehensive plan in 2022 and the land use section is the last to be updated before adopting the new plan.
Still, Gabell said that it will be months before the new comprehensive plan is adopted.
The comprehensive plan serves as a the guiding document for future changes.
“It’s like a blueprint, because what changes on the (proposed land use) map is going to eventually change zoning, or allow for changes in zoning, and zone changes are what people are most concerned about,” Gabell said.
The land use section of the plan is the one that he said he expects to garner the most public engagement.
Comprehensive plan changes
The planning commission has proposed reducing the number of designations from 10 to 7; combining designations that share similar usage.
The designations are not one-to-one with zoning districts. For example, the proposed comprehensive plan combines the current “Recreation” and “Alpine Community” designations into one “Recreational Resort Community” designation. Both the current “Recreation” and “Alpine Community” designations are, at their core, used for recreation, according to Gabell, so designating them under the same land use designation makes sense. However, the designation has several different zoning districts that are aligned with it. If land is designated under the new “Recreational Resort Community” designation, it can be zoned as “Alpine,” “Rural Service Center,” or “Recreation” depending on where it is and the services available to it.
One of the bigger changes the commission has proposed, according to Gabell, is to the “Rural Residential” designation. The new “Rural Residential” designation would only include zoning for 5-acre lots, whereas before it included zoning for 5 and 10-acre lots. This created an overlap with the “Ag/Forest Land” designation which also included zoning for 10-acre lots. This change eliminates that overlap, according to Songstad.
“The theory we have been operating under is that we would combine all the 10-acre zones and 20-acre zones under Ag/Forest, which would eliminate rural-10,” Songstad said. “So, there will be those kind of cleanup zoning (changes) which don’t really affect anybody. It’s more to try to make it make sense and not be kind of superfluous.”
Another beneficial change, according to Gabell, is the planning commission’s effort to align zoning with property lines in their proposed comprehensive plan. This will hopefully eliminate split-zone properties in the county where part of a property is zoned one way and part zoned another.
“We also have a zoning map that that doesn’t align with parcel lines — property lines,” Gabell said. “Which has been really problematic when trying to govern lot densities and uses on split zone properties essentially, which, they really shouldn’t be split zone.”
“I’ve asked the other planning directors around the state through emails, ‘What do you guys do with split zone land?’ and nobody has the issues that we do with split zone properties,” Gabell said. “So, this’ll clean that up for sure.”
Priest Lake
Some Bonner County residents have already raised concern about the commission’s proposed land use map.
Selkirk Conservation Alliance Executive Director Amy Anderson said that the proposed increase in Priest Lake shoreline designated as “Recreational Resort Community” land is especially concerning because it may impact the sensitive alpine lake system which requires that little to no nutrients enter the system to keep the lake blue. With an increase in development along the lake shore, more nutrients will leak into the system, Anderson said.
“It has a great potential to negatively impact our waters,” Anderson said. “And once those waters change, it’s almost impossible to get them back to that original, beautiful, great water quality that they once were.”
Anderson said the proposed designations allow for increased density along the lakeshore because “Recreational Resort Community” land allows for quarter acre lots. Where there are now neighborhoods with single homes on one- to four-acre lots, those properties could potentially be divided into numerous quarter-acre lots. She said that the designation allows for commercial uses such as marinas or resorts that are not permitted under other designations — which Gabell confirmed to be true during the Dec. 3 workshop.
Looking at the increase in “Recreational Resort Community” land on the proposed land use designation map on the county’s website, Anderson said, “I feel like it’s kind of a cancer.”
Gabell said that just because the land has been designated as “Recreational Resort Community” land, does not mean that lots can be automatically divided and new buildings erected.
According to him, lot sizes are also determined by the services that are available. Under current ordinance, he said that development on the smallest lot size that “Recreational Resort Community” designation allows for — 12,000-square-foot lots — is only possible with full urban sewer and water taxing districts present.
“I don’t know that there are any full water and sewer availabilities up there,” Gabell said. “I know there are several water districts and several sewer districts, but some of them are at capacity and not granting any additional connections.”
For lots that rely on individual septic systems and wells, the minimum lot size is two-and-a-half acres, according to Gabell.
To develop any kind of commercial marinas or resorts, Songstad said that developments would need conditional use permits which have many requirements beyond simply meeting the requirements of the land use designation.
“We have all kinds of criteria on conditional use permits,” Songstad said. “It would be difficult to plop a resort in the middle of a neighborhood.”
Songstad also said that it would be difficult for any resorts to buy up enough property to develop in the neighborhoods along the shoreline of Priest Lake because, “most of those shoreline properties, those are multi-million-dollar homes.”
Anderson said she disagreed that greater development was unlikely.
“I think it is very foolish to say it’s highly unlikely that X, Y and Z won’t happen because we don’t have to look far to see it happening all over the place,” Anderson said. “If this land use designation is adopted, all of these property owners will now have that vested right to develop to the maximum density. And maybe John Smith wouldn’t do it, but his kids might, or his kid’s kids might.”
Consistency
The commission stated that one of the major reasons designations were changed on the proposed comprehensive plan land use map was for consistency.
“For example, these are a bunch of lease lots that were zoned to like 40-acre minimum. They’re like quarter-acre lots,” Songstad said pointing to a series of homes along the shoreline of Priest Lake on the proposed land use map. “So, the idea was to match the current density with a land use that will allow that density to happen.”
Anderson said that the lots had been non-conforming going back decades and that there was no need to re-designate them. She said that the Selkirk Conservation Alliance would prefer they stay as legal non-conforming lots.
She also said that the argument that many of the designation changes were proposed for “consistency” did not make sense. She said that there are other shoreline communities in Bonner County that are not receiving the same re-designation treatment as those around Priest Lake.
Gabell said that some of the areas that look similar to the Priest Lake neighborhoods might not have been designated as “Recreational Resort Community” land because they lacked the urban systems that the commission saw around Priest Lake.
As an example, Gabell said that there was land originally designated as “Recreational Resort Community” land along the Pend Oreille River in a previous draft of the land use map. Commissioners chose to change the land’s designation to “Rural Residential” land after community pushback prompted them to do a closer inspection of the area.
Gabell said that the commission welcomed public feedback and was still in the process of updating the proposed land use map based on public input.
“If there are issues and someone points them out, we will fix it.” Gabell said.
Public input
As part of this update to the comprehensive plan, the planning department has worked to update its website to provide more information to the community and make the process of providing public input easier.
The planning department has launched a webpage developed by the county’s GIS team that allows community members to go into a map of the proposed land use designations and drop a pin to provide comments on specific parts of the county.
Gabell said that he would like to have as much input from the community as possible but as of Dec. 11, he said they had received few public comments online.
The planning department’s website also features a PowerPoint presentation on the proposed designation changes and a draft of the proposed comprehensive plan for community members to inspect.
The commission has more workshops planned across the county where residents can come in person to have their questions answered and provide feedback. The remaining workshops will be taking place at the following locations: Dec. 17 at Northside Elementary in Selle Valley; Jan. 7 at the Blanchard Community Center in Blanchard; Jan. 14 at Sagle Elementary in Sagle; Jan. 21 at Southside Elementary in Cocolalla; Jan. 28 at Clark Fork Jr./Sr. High School in Clark Fork; Feb. 2 at The Inn at Priest Lake in Coolin; and Feb. 11 at the Bonner County Administration Building in Sandpoint.
To learn more about the proposed changes to the comprehensive plan or to provide feedback online, visit www.bonnercountyid.gov/departments/Planning.
The current and proposed land use maps side by side on the Bonner County planning department's webpage.