Hayden works to find a vision for its future

Hayden wants to keep its small-town character even though more houses are going up within the city limits than in any other Kootenai County town.

The population has tripled to 10,600 people in 14 years and the size of the town has doubled to cover about eight square miles.

The town was growing and changing so fast that it’s old plan for growth – based on being a small bedroom community – wasn’t working. So city officials totally scrapped its current plan and start crafting an entirely new comprehensive plan, which is the road map and foundation for all land-use decisions.

For a year the Hayden Planning and Zoning Commission has been working with a consultant and local residents to draft the new vision. The city is having public workshops Saturday and Monday to give people a glimpse at how the plan is taking shape. Residents can comment and offer suggestions before the planning commission makes a recommendation to the Hayden City Council.

The planning commission will have a public hearing on the draft, perhaps Dec. 13, before making that recommendation.

“It’s the core building block for the community,” city planner Lisa Key said. “There’s a strong vision for what they want.”

And what Hayden residents want is to allow the town to grow while preserving its small-town character, she said.

One of the main focuses is turning Government Way into a main street corridor that includes a strong downtown area.

The vision outlined in a recent summery report is to encourage people to live and work in downtown Hayden and to give residents in surrounding neighborhoods a place to socialize and dine. That means having mixed-use buildings that have living spaces on the top floors and businesses on the bottom. Bike and pedestrian paths also are considered important as is preserving green space and trees and encouraging landscaping.

Key said Hayden wants to avoid long, strip-mall like developments and letting U.S. Highway 95 cut the town in half.

Developers will use the comprehensive plan to know where they can build and how the buildings should look, she said.

“We can really get developers to build to (residents’) vision,” Key said. “All we have to do is to define the vision.”

Developer and former mayor Mike Sperle has been involved in crafting the new growth plan and said mixed-use development is a good alternative to just having a commercial center surrounded by multi-family housing with single-family homes on the outer core.

“The common idea is to get downtown cleaned up,” Sperle said.

The emphasis for areas outside the downtown core is to encourage mixed use and have housing developments with a “village” feel that give each neighborhood a district identity. Hayden also wants to preserve small, agricultural uses within the city and its outer boundaries. And it sees the value of preserving open space on the Rathdrum Prairie.

The comprehensive plan became the focus of the Wal-Mart debate in 2002. The world’s largest retailer asked Hayden to change its comprehensive plan to allow commercial businesses on the property along Honeysuckle Avenue that is zoned for multifamily housing.

The Planning and Zoning Commission ruled that while the growth plan, which was written in 1995, needs reworking, changing it to satisfy one developer or business was a bad idea.

Wal-Mart hasn’t given up on its intention to build a store in Hayden and representatives are meeting with city officials later this month to review a recent traffic study on improvements the company would need to make to U.S. Highway 95.

Wal-Mart’s new plan is to build a smaller super center worth $6.5 million on a portion of the land that is already zoned to allow commercial businesses.

The company and Hayden have sparred for nearly two years over the new proposal. Wal-Mart has argued it has complied with all of the city’s zoning and subdivision rules and that there is no reason for Hayden not to issue a building permit for the 195,000-square-foot store.

Wal-Mart has threatened to sue if the issue isn’t resolved soon.

Key said it’s premature to say how changes to the comprehensive plan could effect the Wal-Mart proposal or if under the new plan the company would have a better chance of getting the zoning changed at the Honeysuckle location.

“I’m not going to speculate,” Key said, adding that the zone change is no longer the issue.

Mary Jacobsen of Hayden First, the local group opposed to Wal-Mart, has been following the comprehensive plan revision closely. She thinks the city is working hard to reflect the vision residents formed at last fall’s workshop.

“They’ve done the best that they can to reflect on what they’ve heard, taking into account that growth in this area is inevitable,” Jacobsen said.

Both public workshops are at Hayden Meadows Elementary School, 900 E. Hayden Ave.

Saturday’s workshop is from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Monday’s workshop is from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

For more information, call Hayden City Hall at 209-2017.