Planners Say Rezoning Ignores Land-Use Plan Others On Board View County Commission Vote As ‘A Rookie Decision’

Two senior county planning commissioners threatened to quit Wednesday after the county’s new top brass ducked policies designed to protect the area’s aquifer.

Planning commissioners George LaValley and George Nadler said county commissioners last week approved a zoning change that violates the comprehensive plan and ignores direction the planning board has followed for two years.

“This is a very, very serious breach,” said LaValley, a 10-year veteran. “I’m very incensed.”

Last week, county commissioners Dick Compton and Dick Panabaker voted to rezone 150 acres of agricultural-suburban land near the Coeur d’Alene Airport to allow light industrial development. Landowner John Pointner wants to build machine shops there.

In the past, such requests have been denied unless the landowner signs a “development agreement.” Those documents typically require landowners to build roads, buffer projects from neighbors and hook up to a municipal sewer system.

“Without one, they (landowners) could state all the willingness in the world to get sewer, but we have no guarantee,” said Bob Macdonald, the only commissioner to vote against the request.

Macdonald said his colleagues probably just made a mistake.

“I’m afraid the Planning Commission is perceiving this as a philosophical shift among the commissioners to do whatever developers want,” he said. “That’s not the case.”

Panabaker agreed, but said he stands by his decision. He did not know the county had a policy of using development agreements, he said.

LaValley and Nadler said the issue was discussed Feb. 1 at a meeting of the two boards. Other planning commissioners said direction from that meeting was unclear.

Planning Commissioner John Mueller shared LaValley’s and Nadler’s dismay, but attributed the decision to miscommunication and an inexperienced County Commission.

“I wasn’t too pleased,” Mueller said. “But I viewed it as a rookie decision.”

The Planning Commission rejected the zone change in a 2-2 vote. Two planning commissioners were out of town; the two who voted for the change were new and also unaware of the policy.

Nadler said the County Commission’s decision to not require a development agreement was especially unfortunate because sewer systems eventually will be available at the site. Sewage plants in Hayden and at the airport don’t have capacity to treat waste from Pointner’s project yet.

“So what?” asked project representative Glenn Jackson.

Panhandle Health District rules allow him to use septic tanks for waste as long as the development does not exceed 20 full-time employees for every five acres.

But concerns about waste leaching into the ground water prompted the county in its new comprehensive plan - approved before Panabaker and Compton were elected - to prohibit new industrial development on septic tanks.

“Industrial development must be served by municipal waste-water treatment systems or functional equivalents,” states the comprehensive plan on page 19.

“I don’t know about that,” Panabaker said. “I think we did the right thing with the information we had available.”

Pointner’s land is next to the airport - an inappropriate place for homes, Panabaker said. Besides, he added, the county can’t legally require a developer to enter into an agreement.

“It didn’t make sense to me that we hold them up if it wasn’t legally enforceable,” Panabaker said.

The landowner didn’t sign an agreement because it is “costly, timeconsuming, onerous, and has a chilling effect on anyone who wants to develop his land,” Jackson said.

Macdonald said that’s not true. Most agreements take just days or weeks to negotiate, he said.

“It can be very simple or as complicated as we want to make it,” he said.

The two boards will meet next week to hash out the problem. Regardless, LaValley said he intends to “scour the woods and rabble-rouse” until he can find a resident willing to appeal the decision.

Nadler said he was so angry he can’t sleep nights.

“I spent 5 years of my life thinking I was doing some good and in one fell swoop it can be gone,” Nadler said.