County working to clean up rules on on lot size, uses

Story has been updated.

BONNERS FERRY — Boundary County commissioners are working to clean up county ordinances relating to lot use and sizes.

At the Aug. 15 Boundary County Commission meeting, county attorney Tevis Hull said that the county’s legal department and Planning & Zoning are looking for the official date regarding subdivision law in the county.

Hull said that prior to contracting out to the P&Z department in the consulting firm Ruen Yeager, P&Z administrative staff had made mistakes when it came to allowing subdivisions and lot size changes in zoning that did not allow for that size.

An example would be that prior staff allowed a 40-acre parcel to be subdivided into 10-acre parcels while the area was zoned rural 40 acres, Hull said.

Clare Marley, Zoning Administrator for P&Z, said that in the past P&Z staff was misinformed and led landowners to believe that they could make changes to the zoning of lots. Now that Ruen Yeager has been contracted to run P&Z, they have seen inconsistencies.

Marley said they are looking to grandfather the changes of lots pertaining to size, but not their uses.

She said landowners should not be penalized for acting inaccurate information they were provided, adding the ordinance needs to be updated with regards to non-conforming lots. As is the ordinance non-conforming lots are “illegal,” but Marley said these lots are lawful.

Another issue is recovering the official zoning map. The commissioners approved and signed a new map earlier this year, but the prior map that P&Z staff were citing had never been signed. So, the current P&Z department and Hull are trying to find what was law at the time.

Hull said at this time the law on record is from July 2017. At this date staff can confidently say the subdivision law is accurate and anything before that date is lawful in respect of land division.

The commissioners are taking the position that prior to 2022, subdivisions, or parcel splits, are approved relating to lot size, but not usage. This would mean that a split of a 10-acre parcel to two 5-acre parcels may be approved, but the usage may not be if it does not fit the usage based on the 2022 official zoning map.

Commissioner Dan Dinning told the Bonners Ferry Herald that the hope behind this update is reduces the amount of public hearings and the workload for P&Z.

Landowners may need to provide documents to the county such as surveys or plats, but at this time no decisions have been made.

The Bonners Ferry Herald will continue to follow this story.