Comp Plan Moving Toward Final Passage

At a deliberation this morning, postponed from several weeks ago, the Kootenai County Commissioners signaled that they are nearing completion of the long-awaited comprehensive plan. After some unpublicized “workshops” with officials from cities on the prairie, which had criticized the plan at the most recent hearing, the Commissioners agreed to several tweaks to the most recent draft to accommodate some of their concerns. At this morning’s deliberation, the Commissioners completed all but the land use chapter, which is scheduled to be deliberated Tuesday afternoon.

Among the changes, the Commissioners agreed with KEA comments to clarify that a minimum of 70% of future development should be directed to municipalities. Commissioners did some rearranging of some of the goals and policies in some of the chapters, and made some wholesale deletions of mostly-extraneous text. Commissioners Currie and Piazza refused, however, to restore development densities into the plan – still a fatal flaw.

Based on today’s pace, and with only the land use chapter remaining, the Commissioners could complete the plan, for once and for all, on Tuesday afternoon.