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 »
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 »
We’ve been tracking the Bonner County Property Rights Council for some time. Lately, we were following the PRC application on behalf of Lawrence and Nels Heidekker, owners of a problematic junkyard near Priest River. The junkyard, currently subject to a code enforcement action by Bonner County, appeared to be attempting to avoid the enforcement action by going through the PRC instead. According PRC documents and 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 »
Kootenai County is still on schedule to replace its hopelessly out-dated land use codes by this time next year. Kendig Keast Collaborative, the consultant hired by the County to assemble the re-write, has been moving forward, on schedule, with preliminary issue papers and draft “modules” of code language. The issue papers and draft code already released are available for ongoing public comment at the project 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 »
With a whirlwind week of committee meetings, focus groups, and “Citizen Congress” town hall gatherings, Kootenai County is finally getting on with the business of re-writing its out-dated land use laws. The initial meetings this week will set the stage for an 18-month process in which the laws that govern everything development-related in the county — from subdivisions to signage, from hearing procedures to shoreline more »
Faced with a subdivision proposal on a steep hillside above Hayden Lake, the Kootenai County Commissioners struggled today with the County’s subdivision ordinances and denied the request. The subdivision would have placed some 34 homes on steep slopes and erodible soils just above Hayden Lake – not far from where East Hayden Lake Road washed out in the recent spring rains. The Commissioners wrestled with more »
