Huckleberries Online

Whitopia: CdA’s ‘One-Acre-Lot’ Rule?

Posted by DFO

Dec. 21, 2009 5:30 p.m. • 5 comments

Coeur D’Alene “has developed in such a way that the working class white folks who grew up there aren’t going to be able to raise their kids in the very community they grew up in,” Benjamin says. The culprit is not necessarily individual discrimination, but structural and institutional momentum, with zoning and real estate policies often implemented by wealthy newcomers. “It’s not just a natural fact of life, how resources are mobilized on behalf of the rich,” Benjamin says. “The real estate industry has lobbied the (Coeur D’Alene) local government in such a way that you can only zone property on a one-acre lot. “The stated reason of one-acre lot rules is to control ‘congestion’ and to keep ‘low density.’ In reality, by requiring a one acre lot, the locality ensures only wealthy people move in — how many poor people/renters do we know who can afford a one-acre lot?/Rob Baedecker, Special to SF Gate. More here.

Question: I’d like to think Richard Benjamin was misquoted here. I’ve lived in Coeur d’Alene for most of my 25 years in town. The only one-acre requirement placed by a municipal government is in Dalton Gardens. Wonder where Benjamin and/or the writer here came up with that idea?

Five comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Frum Helen Back on December 21 at 6:29 p.m.
Maybe these are new rules for Coeur d’Alene. We old timers are suffering from changes made out here at Hauser. I think I’ve given up on the fight with our P&Z and Code Administrator. The new comers are winning. I just wonder sometimes why they moved here and then want to change everything. Maybe they’re just homesick.
LarrySpencer on December 21 at 7:24 p.m.
Post Falls and Hayden also have much of their “undeveloped” areas designated as R-1 or one home per acre. This was largly started by the sucess of the “Meadows” in Post Falls that John DeVries developed around ten years ago. At that time, nobody thought it would work, but when it did, it became the new “desired” zone because of the above average values of the new homes it brought, and the tax increases it generated.

I think the author missed the true reason for the zone changes, that being the high tax base of more expensive homes.
Duffer on December 21 at 8:04 p.m.
Indian Meadows Subdivision west of Atlas Road was developed on one acre lots while in the County. Under former Mayor Jim Fromm, they were forcibly annexed into CDA and I think are the only R-1 subdivision in the City of Coeur d’Alene today.
hhuseland on December 21 at 9:15 p.m.
I believe that Dalton Gardens was originally 5 acre tracts, which were subsequently cut down to a more manageable 1 acre. You can still find 5 acre parcels out there. Two were in my back yard when I ran Herb’s Paperback Exchange on Government way across from Cenex.
jt on December 22 at 11:33 a.m.
LarrySpencer - your math doesn’t add up.

I can build a single home on an acre and (in 2005) assess it a value of $500K (just using a round number). Or (assuming proper zoning) I can build eight $125K homes on that same acre for a total value of $1M.

Which community generates more property tax income?

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.