Lack of CdA permits halts county project

Sat., Dec. 30, 2006

By Erica Curless ericac@spokesman.com (509) 459-5439

Kootenai County had to stop work this week on the remodel of a recently purchased midtown building after failing to get a permit from the city of Coeur d’Alene.

“It’s really a nonevent,” Commissioner Rick Currie said Friday. “It just sets us back a day or so.”

The city red-tagged the remodeling project on the former U.S. Bureau of Land Management building on Third Street because the county didn’t obtain the proper plumbing permits.

Currie said the county normally works with the state on plumbing inspections and didn’t realize that Coeur d’Alene conducts its own plumbing reviews.

It’s an ironic situation for the county, which is more accustomed to issuing stop-work orders than receiving them.

Deputy City Attorney Warren Wilson characterized it as a minor mix-up.

“We’ll get in there after holidays and get it squared away,” Wilson said.

The county bought the former BLM building for $1.5 million in October.

Currie said the county had been setting aside money in its capital improvement fund knowing that it would eventually have to find a new home for the dilapidated and cramped elections office on Garden Avenue.

When the remodel is complete in the next few weeks, the county building and planning department, along with the county extension office, will move in.

The building and planning department is currently in the basement of the county administration building, while the extension office rents space from University of Idaho’s Harbor Center.

The elections office will move to the current planning and building space.

Currie said initially the county planned to move the elections office into the former BLM building but decided that it made more sense to keep it on the county campus.

The building and planning department needs more space and more parking, which the BLM building provides.

As for the old yellow and green elections office, Currie said it soon will be demolished. But the city Fire Department may first choose to use it for training. The county will likely turn the site into a parking lot.

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Lack of CdA permits halts county project

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