Good Folks,
This is my call for action. If you care about what happens with Latah
County zoning, you better get involved in this process starting this month.
It's not a matter of who yells the loudest, but rest assured that Planning
and the Commissioners are strongly swayed by the public participation
process. No amount of surveys, letters, or phone calls will substitute for
direct, eloquent testimony by a large number of people.
You should definitely check out the full text and maps of our proposals,
but here's my summary of what we have and why:
1) A set of design standards that address fire prevention, public health,
and wildlife habitat issues.
These issues are of primary importance to a number of citizens,
including professionals who work in those fields. We had to balance the
public good with regulation and came up with a very conservative check
list.
2) We have divided the current ag/forest zone into two zones:
A. A new "Rural" zone. This zone constitutes the bulk of the rural area on
the comp plan map (basically the less-productive areas along the highway
corridors), with the *extremely important exception* of the areas
surrounding the Moscow area of impact (see my "Note" below).
In this zone, each parcel over 10 acres gets 1 free split of > 1 acre.
To get more splits, at least 3/4 of each new parcel must be on unproductive
soil types. If you have 20 to 80 acres you get one additional parcel,
80-160 you get two.
I supported this. Its intent was to preserve currently undeveloped land
by encouraging partitioning of smaller lots. Lots of people will get one or
two adminstrative (no hearing) partitions, but it limits lots of partitions
going to a few individuals. I believe should go a long way in helping
people who want to build a second home for a family member.
B. Most of the rest of the county stays in the ag/forest zone. In this
zone, partitioning is based on the number of acres of unproductive soil.
Parcels with 10 to 40 acres are eligible for one land division. 40-160 gets
two divisions. Parcels larger than 160 acres get an administrative land
division.
This was an matter of give-and-take compromise. It was argued by a vast
majority of the public that 40 acres is a horrible size for a division (too
big to mow, too small to farm or forest). Clearly, it would be unfair to
just raise the minimum size for partitioning to 160 acres. So as a trade
off, we made it easy to partition pieces of unproductive land. Note that
the minimum lot size is 1 acre, not 40.
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Note: I fought very hard to keep the areas around the Moscow area of impact
in the agriculture zone. The vote was very close, and this is likely to be
one of the most contentious issues of our proposal. Unless convinced I'm
wrong (which is easy), I will continue to fight for it.
My reasoning is, first, that these lands are some of the most productive
in the county. Second, I believe that these lands are under the most
pressure for development, yet are some of the least desirable for
development (poor groundwater resources, service availability, etc.);
consequently, there needs to be a careful eye on the developments. Few
people support the widespread development of unplanned suburbanization just
outside the area of impact, and I believe we'd see it in less than a decade
if this area weren't closely watched.
Note that rezoning to rural-residential in this area (ag by zoning; rural
by comp plan) will not require a revision to the comp plan (i.e. be
easier).
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Okay folks, the target is up. I'll help as much as my time allows.
My Regards, Dennis
One other thing: let's keep discussion civil; focus on the issues, not the
people. Trashing people like Schwam (he's an advocate for his clients, for
goodness sake) and the Cameron brothers on-line is not only mean-spirited,
it defeats your purposes.