From the KEA Board of Directors: If you value the life you enjoy in the county, we urge you to support the adoption of the county’s Unified Land Use Code. The code will implement the newly adopted comprehensive plan and replace current codes that are decades old. Right now the new code is being assaulted by people claiming their private property rights will be taken more »
Although it seems to have fallen on deaf ears, here’s a great letter from conservative east side Republican Chris Fillios to the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee regarding the Unified Land Use Code controversy. It’s not just KEA with concerns about the “property rights” concerns: I understand tonight’s Republican Central Committee meeting is for the purpose of passing the resolution re: the ULUC, ensuring the more »
One more thing on the unenlightened ULUC opposition. Opponents need to recognize that being against the new code has the same effect as being for the old one. Until a new code is passed, the old one is still in effect. The purported “property rights” issues in the ULUC already exist — in the current code. But much worse. The reality is that Idaho state more »
Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. But thanks to the efforts of the Larry Spencer wing of the local Republican Party, a long-overdue overhaul of local land use codes is in jeopardy because of irrational fear of an obscure and utterly irrelevant international document. First, some background. For the 85% of Americans who will have no idea what this uproar is about, Agenda 21 is a 20-year-old more »
Wow. I leave town and two weeks later, crazy takes over. From relentlessly sunny Southern California, I noted the recent and growing uproar over Kootenai County’s land use code re-write. And from here, where the sprawl goes on and on and on for miles, the growing opposition to Kootenai County’s Unified Land Use Code (ULUC) project appears to be either pointlessly obstructionist or appallingly uninformed. more »
Yesterday, the CDA Press reported that the Kootenai County Commissioners were “scrapping a proposal to expand shoreline protection requirements” in the re-writing of the zoning and development codes. And, in one sense, it is true that the Commissioners and the consultant and the Advisory Committee panel have gone back to the drawing board. But rather than this being some political victory for property rights, or more »
We caught this press release (pdf) over at Huckleberries Online, and it is an important development in Kootenai County’s ULUC land use code project. One of the major difficulties in any zoning code overhaul is what to do with properties that already exist and would be allowed under an old code, but not allowed under the new one. Kootenai County ‘s consultant is suggesting a more »
Suppose the new development codes for Kootenai County could provide more development potential, more flexibility for builders and homeowners, and much better protection of our lakes and streams. Who wouldn’t want that? Indeed, as early drafts of the new codes are being released, this win-win-win scenario could soon be playing out along county shorelines. One of the most controversial — and dysfunctional – aspects of more »
Just as Kootenai County gets on with the long-overdue business of re-writing the dysfunctional land use codes, the chronic malcontents have indeed crawled out from under their rocks to wail about their property rights and to attempt to derail an important process. Unfortunately, their lack of concern for everyone else’s property rights illustrates how misguided they actually are. In a hysterical email that was widely more »
Idaho’s tradition of fierce protection of private property rights is well known and well established. The State of Idaho has legislated layers and layers of protection for the wide majority of Idahoans who particularly value the rights that accompany the ownership of land. However, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld – property rights are not absolute. The right to own property is not the more »
