Rezoning Move Angers Neighbors County Commissioners Approve Storage Facility Near Rathdrum

A piece of property northeast of Rathdrum will have a new storage facility for contractors, much to the chagrin of numerous neighbors.

Kootenai County commissioners approved Mort Castleton’s request on Nov. 26, rezoning the land from rural residential to light industrial.

Mike and Yvonne Stine, who live on rural land near the property, say the commissioners should not have approved Castleton’s request.

“I’m going to make sure that the county commissioners are not re-elected,” Mike Stine said. “I’m looking into every avenue I can to block this.”

He wants to file an appeal through the planning and zoning commission. He’s talking to officials from the Department of Environmental Quality about whether Castleton’s plans violate any environmental codes. And he has sought legal counsel on filing a lawsuit against the commissioners for taxation without representation.

All this after Commissioner Ron Rankin made a wry comment in an interview on Friday: “I haven’t been sued in a week or shot at in a month so I’m keeping a low profile.”

At public hearings on the zone change, numerous neighbors said the storage facility would ruin the rural character of their area.

“When you have a democracy, you expect that the majority will rule, and in this case, one individual won, and I think that’s taxation without representation,” Stine said, explaining that voters pay commissioners to represent them.

“We as the people expect that they vote to the people’s wishes,” he said.

Not all of Stine’s neighbors agree the commissioners made a mistake.

Frederick Kroetch owns 30 acres next to Castleton’s property and said he was “very happy” with the commissioners’ decision.

“They (Stine and others siding with him) are reactionary people,” Kroetch said. “I think everything was done right.”

The storage facility would be on 11 acres and would house up to 20 storage units.

Castleton has said the facility would help fill a countywide need for outdoor storage for contractors and would help the area economically.

During deliberations Wednesday, commissioners Dick Compton and Dick Panabaker voted in favor of the agreement. Rankin abstained, explaining later he wanted Castleton’s representative, Jim Stravens, to comply with requirements set by the county attorney.

Compton, the chairman of the commission, needs to sign the final zone change agreement next Wednesday before it will go into effect. Before he signs the agreement, Stravens will have to make the requested changes.

Rankins said: “I didn’t have much of a problem with the guy doing with his land as he saw fit as long as it didn’t hurt anybody and I didn’t think it would.”

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