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County P&Z gives thumbs down to
subdivision proposal |
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December 17, 2011 |
The Boundary County Planning and Zoning
Commission met Thursday evening to accept public
comment on a controversial 30-lot subdivision
proposal, and after more than two hours of
testimony and deliberation, voted unanimously to
forward to county commissioners a recommendation
that The Estates at Copeland Landing be denied.
That recommendation and the P&Z commissions
findings will go to Boundary County
Commissioners and a second public hearing will
be held before commissioners make the final
decision, likely in February.
Presented by Fox Enterprises and James Fox,
whose family has owned prime farmland in the
Kootenai River Valley since the 1930s, the
application was the first platted subdivision
application in the county since 2005 and the
first under new zoning and subdivision laws
approved in August, which allow "cluster"
subdivisions.
Under the clustering concept, smaller lot sizes
are allowed within each zone district, including
the newly created prime agriculture zone, though
the overall number of residential lots
established by the minimum lot size doesn't
change. The additional acreage in the parcel is
then set aside as restricted from future
development.
In The Estates at Copeland Landing, the 30 lots
proposed, ranging in size from 2 1/2 to three
acres, would have been "clustered" on around
80-acres along the west side of the Kootenai
River at the Copeland Bridge, and 300 acres of
prime farm ground would have been restricted.
The nearly full main courtroom at the county
courthouse Thursday evening was the largest
gathering of county farmers and farm families
since the county fair, all concerned about the
incompatibility of high-yield farming in close
proximity to residential use.
James Fox, whose family farmed the land for a
time before leasing it to Victor Amoth three
generations ago, said he had in the past
operated everything from farms to feed lots, and
that he'd been in land development since the
1960s, specializing in making home sites and
farms work together.
His proposal he said, would provide prime
waterfront residential lots while at the same
time preserving the best farm ground in
perpetuity.
Farmers in the area expressed concerns about
everything from septic systems leaching into the
river, traffic to the availability of water, but
the two most common concerns were protecting the
dike, which runs through each lot proposed, and
the potential loss of the ability to farm
because of complaints by those who would build
homes there.
Several cited the Rathdrum Prairie, not long ago
prime farm land where mostly grass was grown.
Once residential use began taking hold, they
said, it wasn't long before complaints and
lawsuits made it impossible to continue farming
operations there.
In the end, the P&Z commission agreed with the
farmers, saying it would be irresponsible of
them to okay a proposal that would so adversely
impact a use established there for decades. They
also expressed safety concerns over traffic and
the lack of assurred protection for the dikes,
which had been maintained by Drainage District 9
until the association was disbanded several
years ago. |
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