Court voids airstrip ruling

A Coeur d’Alene couple is back to square one with a contested private airstrip following an Idaho Supreme Court decision Thursday.

Chief justice Linda Copple Trout and justices Wayne L. Kidwell, Daniel T. Eismann and Roger S. Burdick voided a May Kootenai County District Court ruling that said Brent and Moura Regan’s airstrip south of Coeur d’Alene was in violation of Kootenai County law. The decision was dismissed because the Regans didn’t attempt to solve the problem outside the courtroom beforehand, giving the court no jurisdiction to hear it.

“The Supreme Court shook its finger at me, at the county’s attorney and at the judge, saying, ‘You guys should have spotted this earlier,’ ” said Regan’s attorney, Harvey Richman.

The Regans own an airstrip on 175 acres in an agricultural suburban zone along Borley Road in a rural area a few miles east of Coeur d’Alene. Brent Regan occasionally used it for personal flights. The airstrip was the site of a plane crash that killed two and injured one in October 2002.

The Kootenai County planning department said the airstrip violated county law and sent a letter in 1999 threatening to sue the Regans if they didn’t stop using the airstrip, appeal the county’s interpretation of the ordinance or apply for an amendment to the ordinance.

Instead, the Regans filed a suit in 2002 for relief against Kootenai County while asking for an interpretation of the ordinance as it applied to their private strip.

The district court ruled against the Regans a year later, prohibiting them from taking off or landing aircraft on their property. They appealed the case to the Idaho Supreme Court.

But justices said the dstrict court should not have heard the case in the first place. In Idaho, people must first try to solve county problems through local administrative appeal processes before challenging administrative acts.

“This issue should have been pursued before the Kootenai County zoning authorities, under the procedures of the County’s administrative appeal ordinance and the Local Land Use Planning Act, and not by the district court through declaratory relief,” the ruling said.

Rand Wichman, building and planning director for the county, said the ruling is what he expected, adding the issue could have been resolved if the Regans carried out suggestions made by the planning department in 1999.

Wichman said Regan filed for a permit a few months ago that would legalize his airstrip, but he requested it not be heard until after the Supreme Court decision.

“I expect that we will be sorting through the issues for some time,” Wichman said.

Richman said the Regans plan to start the administrative procedure once the mandate is handed down in about a month.

“We have to start all over again, and that’s unfortunate,” he said.