Commissioners respond to Gardiner letter

This letter is written at the request of and has been approved by Boundary County Commissioners in response to the guest opinion published in last week's Herald by Patrick and Ada Gardiner.

While I wholeheartedly agree that property owners in Boundary County should be aware of changes in the new comprehensive plan, I disagree with their conclusion that the work done to date will degrade the quality rural lifestyle the plan so firmly establishes as a priority to maintain.

County Commissioners are only now becoming involved in the Comprehensive Plan review process after more than a year of hard work by numerous county citizens and the Planning and Zoning Commission.

What they are doing now, with the help of the county civil attorney and I, is reviewing what the community submitted to ensure that the new comprehensive plan will meet state legal requirements and serve the best interests of the community. The public is invited to attend these workshops, but public comment cannot be accepted.

As the process proceeds, at least one, and likely more, public hearing will be held, during which all concerns raised will be considered and addressed.

The assessment that the new plan will pave the way for unlimited gravel pits, mines and quarries in five of the zone districts established is based on a failure to examine the provisions cited in context. As to mining and mineral extraction, the plan establishes that "it should be the goal of this plan to recognize the importance of mineral exploration and extraction within Boundary County, and that mining can only occur where minerals occur, and to establish those zones where mining would be conducive to the purposes therein as well as those zones where mining operations would be detrimental, to include high density residential areas, sensitive wildlife habitat or in the vicinity of surface and ground waters."

The five zone districts the Gardiner's cite as allowing commercial and industrial mining, gravel pit and rock quarrying for the first time as conditional or special uses is not only misleading, it's erroneous. Under our current comprehensive plan and zone ordinance, consideration of mining as a special use is allowed in all zone districts, including those designated as residential.

The new plan recognizes that some areas of the county, to include areas designated prime agriculture and agriculture/forestry, are more conducive to being maintained in large tracts to allow continued agricultural production and harvest, ranching and natural resource extraction than they are to being developed for residential use. The plan also recognizes that other areas of the county are better suited for higher density residential development, where mining and quarrying do not fit. For the first time, the plan states that mining should not be allowed in those areas.

The provision that sparked the Gardiners' concern appears in the Land Use component of the comprehensive plan, which describes the types of uses which are conducive and which are detrimental within each zone district established. That component says nothing about the rights of adjoining property owners, which is addressed in the first component of the plan; Property Rights, where it is established that "planners should find equal balance in those instances where a property owner applies to change the zoning classification of a property or applies for a special use permit within zoning ordinance provisions, that equal consideration be given to the property rights of adjoining property owners."

The portion of the land use component they cite as the basis for their analysis, describing the Agriculture/Forestry Zone, reads as follows "While these lands may be suitable for limited residential development, the retention of these lands as open and productive farm and forest is deemed essential to maintaining the rural nature of Boundary County, and land use decisions should give priority to the use and extraction of natural resources."

To accomplish this goal, those who drafted the plan established that the minimum lot size in the zone district should be not less than 20-acres and that uses such as hotels, motels, auto wrecking yards, billboards and other similar uses, which could fit in other zone districts, be prohibited.

Contrary to the contention that the new plan will devastate Boundary County's rural and scenic land, I think those who participated in its development deserve great credit for crafting a document that will not only protect the rural lifestyle, but allow the continued use of the county's natural resources, where appropriate, in a manner that will fairly balance often conflicting needs and interests.

One point made by the Gardiner's that I wholeheartedly agree with is their statement that county residents must make their views known. The Comprehensive Plan is an important document that will lead to the development of laws and rules that will affect everyone in the community, and it deserves our careful consideration and analysis as we go through the final stages of the process.

Mike Weland

Zoning Administrator

Boundary County

Planning and Zoning

Bonners Ferry

267-7212