New Yorker, feds spar on home plans

STANLEY, Idaho – Federal land managers are at odds with a New York attorney working in China over his plans to build a huge home on land covered by a conservation easement in central Idaho’s Sawtooth National Recreation Area.

Jon Christianson obtained a building permit last month for what Custer County officials said was an 8,500-square-foot multistory home within view of Idaho Highway 75 on land he bought in March about 15 miles south of Stanley.

He maintains his proposal complies with terms of the easement intended to preserve the beauty of the Stanley Basin. Federal land managers are taking another view, maintaining his preliminary designs don’t fit in and will mar the landscape.

JannDe Joy, the area’s acting lands program manager, says it’s a matter of interpretation and attempts to find common ground have not gone well in what she believes could be a legal test of the ability of the easements to protect the recreation area.

The tract is covered by two of the original easements secured after the 756,000-acre recreation area was designated by Congress in 1972.

The easements regulate development on private lands so it does not spoil the basin’s overall scenic and natural beauty.

In the last 30 years, taxpayers have paid out $40 million for 90 conservation easements to preserve the integrity of the basin.

A major issue is that the 30-year-old easement is not as specific about development restrictions as the new easements have become, Joy said.

“Our early language did a good job of obtaining subdivision rights, but it didn’t do a lot with building envelopes and other things so that any structure doesn’t impact the landscape,” she said on Friday.

Attempts to reach Christianson through his New York firm were unsuccessful Friday.

Federal regulations stipulate structures built in the recreation area must be “low profile, rambling, well-proportioned, rustic appearing, rough-sawn wood or wood and stone structure or group of structures harmoniously situated within a natural environment.”

Joy said the Forest Service, which manages the recreation area, has interpreted that to mean structures should look like those built 50 years ago while Christianson has a different, more modern interpretation.

But, Joy said, “we try to have a cooperative relationship, and we’re still trying to pursue that.”