County planning isn't getting job done
Tuesday evening, the County held a public hearing for the revised Comprehensive Plan. They took testimony (a good share in opposition from the major communities in the county). In the end they closed the public hearing and moved to hold deliberations on Nov. 18.
Doesn't anyone out there wonder what's going on? The communities in the county have been opposed to the plan since the 3rd draft. In their respected opinion the plan needs to be redone. Wouldn't the opinions of the communities weigh in heavily? After all, they represent 70 percent of county residents. Are we really in that big of a hurry? In this economy?
The county has put aside $350,000 to hire someone to write the ordinances that would implement the plan. Commissioner Currie says, "It's too big of a job for staff." Why is that? Doesn't the county hire competent planners? Maybe they don't have the time. Let's look at that for a minute and see how busy they are.
The latest Idaho Construction Reports came out about a week ago. The report tells an interesting story. One of the exhibits is year to date activity through September.
This is telling:
* City of Coeur d'Alene: 166 single family/966 total permits
* City of Post Falls: 127 single family/333 total permits
* Kootenai County: 137 single family/608 total permits
From experience, I can tell you that these number are down significantly from "normal" years. Post Falls considers 300 to 350 single family dwellings per year to be reasonable growth. What these numbers mean is that revenue projection will be short. (Remember the column that Ed Morse did a few weeks ago?)
The real story appears when you look at staff numbers in the building and planning departments.
* City of Coeur d'Alene: 14
* City of Post Falls: 6
* Kootenai County: 30
In the time that the county has been wringing its hands over the Comprehensive Plan, Coeur d'Alene has revised its comprehensive plan and has kept their ordinances updated; Post Falls has revised its Comprehensive Plan, revised its Capital Plan and impact fees and has kept its ordinances up to date. Post Falls even managed to implement a new SmartCode. All of the communities in the area have taken steps to deal with declining revenues by reducing staff levels but are still providing acceptable and usually remarkable public service.
What justifies the huge difference in county staff levels? Shouldn't the planning staff be capable of drafting the necessary ordinances to implement the plan? What are they doing? As suggested by the cities, the county could use the $350,000 to revise the comp plan and write the ordinances necessary to implement.
If county staff isn't up to the job of ordinance drafting then the county taxpayers shouldn't have to pay their salaries. The numbers just don't lie! We need some serious change. The citizens of Kootenai County deserve better fiscal management and more responsive commissioners. If the U.S. Constitution is only several pages long, why must the Comp Plan be hundreds of pages?
Collin Coles is former senior planner with the City of Post Falls.