Building may be allowed in flood area

Cataldo residents may get permission to build or remodel structures on their land that is in the path of the Coeur d’Alene River flood waters if the Kootenai County Commission relaxes current building codes.

The commission is looking at making the county’s laws more like those in Shoshone County. Cataldo straddles the border of Kootenai and Shoshone counties.

Cataldo residents on the Kootenai County side currently can’t build new homes, add garages, raise the elevation of their property or make any other major improvements because the county won’t issue building permits in the high-risk flood area.

Under the proposed rule change, county Planning Director Rand Wichman said residents could get building permits if they can get a no-rise certification. The certification requires an engineer to demonstrate that building a structure in the floodway won’t cause the river height to rise in the event of a flood.

Property owners also would have to elevate the structures and anchor them so they don’t float downstream if there is high water, Wichman said.

He added that it’s often difficult to get a no-rise certification and that elevating the property and anchoring structures adds significantly to construction costs.

The Kootenai County Planning Commission will hold a public hearing Thursday night. The county commission will make the final decision.

Some Cataldo residents said relaxing the building rules will at least give them a chance to try to use their property.

Inge McNutt, who owns the Mission Inn, said people who buy property in Cataldo know it will eventually flood. But that shouldn’t keep the government from stopping all construction,” she said.

“What is New Orleans?” McNutt asked Monday. “They have a whole city in the water. We don’t even have that much water. It’s not even in comparison.”

She would like to expand her inn and make some other changes but the county has repeatedly said no since the Federal Emergency Management Agency reclassified part of the town from a flood plain to the higher-risk category of floodway after the 1996 flood. That meant Kootenai County would no longer issue building permits in the area.

The section of Cataldo that sits in Shoshone County wasn’t reclassified, and those residents don’t have to follow the strict building codes of Kootenai County.

McNutt is leery of this new proposal. She said Kootenai County has had many hearings and discussions but nothing has ever changed. She said the county talked about buying out residents and relocating them, but after a public hearing in February she never heard another word about the plan.

“Whatever they are saying doesn’t have any truth to it whatsoever,” McNutt said.

Yet she will attend Thursday’s hearing.

Wichman said that he doesn’t think the buyout plan is still active because the county never got a clear consensus from Cataldo residents about whether they would accept the deal. The other issue was how the county would find the money to match the federal grant.