Bayview residents asking for special zoning rules

Bayview building heights would be limited to 30 feet and developers would be required to provide more parking if a group of community residents wins approval for special zoning regulations for the unincorporated area on the southern end of Lake Pend Oreille.

The community of about 600 year-round residents and 1,500 people in the summer has experienced a growth boom of late, with developers buying up key properties and converting longtime mobile home parks to other uses.

It’s a trend that the Bayview Chamber of Commerce argues is pushing longstanding residents out of the community, taxing wastewater treatment capacity and creating parking headaches.

The Kootenai County Board of Commissioners will hold a hearing tonight to consider the Bayview request for a community-specific text amendment to the county’s zoning ordinance.

Commissioners could approve the plan, deny it or send it back to the requestors to make changes, said Kootenai County Planner Mark Mussman.

“This, if adopted, would be the first regulations in the county specific for one geographic location,” Mussman said.

“I’m hopeful it will be approved,” said Bayview Chamber of Commerce Treasurer Kathi Ellis.

Ellis, who researched the bulk of the zoning overlay, said that plans for high-rise condominiums, tall parking garages and developments with inadequate parking prompted Bayview residents to research ways to control growth.

“This tiny community cannot handle that kind of development,” she said, noting that cliffs, the lake and Farragut State Park limit its outward growth.

Tall buildings on the lake’s edge would be prohibited under the zoning overlay, Ellis said.

“It will create some height restrictions so that the beautiful views of the lake aren’t destroyed for the rest of the community,” she said.

What the overlay would not do is impact projects that have already been permitted or pending applications. That means some large buildings could still be built in Bayview.

The proposed overlay is problematic for several reasons, according to Erika Grubbs, a land-use attorney representing developer Bob Holland.

Grubbs wrote a letter to Kootenai County outlining her concerns. One key problem, she said, is that the overlay would be “spot zoning,” and would open the door to hodge-podge zoning rules for different areas of the county.

“If this ordinance is adopted, it would create a ‘slippery slope’ by which every little neighborhood, community, or group of individuals with special interests who desire specialized treatment separate and apart from the county’s overall zoning designations, ordinances and comp plan, could, if they convinced the right people, create their own overlay zones,” Grubbs wrote.

Some have argued that if Bayview residents want to control development they should incorporate into their own city, but Ellis said that’s a complicated process that would take too long.

“This overlay needs to happen now,” she said. “We’ve watched as little by little our community has been threatened to be overrun.”