Cd'A City Council nixes reports for proposed urban renewal districts

COEUR d’ALENE — Council members put the brakes Tuesday on a proposal that included investigating two regions in the city as possible urban renewal districts.

The areas in Coeur d’Alene included big chunks of the city around Ironwood and Sherman avenues.

The City Council with a 3-3 vote narrowly defeated a measure to move forward with eligibility surveys for two urban renewal districts including a 281-acre Health District and a 106-acre East Sherman district.

Mayor Steve Widmyer recused himself from the discussion, leaving the three no votes to override the votes in favor of moving ahead with the surveys.

City planning director Hilary Anderson said the proposed districts are just thumbnails and their borders can be modified.

The ideas sprang from two separate projects, including one pushed by Kootenai Health in conjunction with CDA 2030 — a community partnership group — to possibly turn an area that includes commercial and residential land between Government Way and Northwest Boulevard, and Appleway and Davidson avenues on its north and southern borders, into an urban renewal district (URD).

A city project to make upgrades to the East Sherman Avenue corridor — a four-block wide strip surrounding Sherman Avenue between Ninth Street and Interstate 90, would also be considered for a URD.

But council members were taken aback by what they considered projects still too green to be brought to the City Council for consideration.

“Kootenai Health was interested in exploring this as a possible urban renewal district,” Anderson said.

The hospital asked the city to help pay for the study to determine if the area meets the criteria for a URD.

At East Sherman, Anderson said, community members have been mulling a URD for more than a decade.

“One of the things we’ve been hearing from from the community is that urban renewal is probably our best tool for seeing this area get revitalized,” she said. “Is it the right tool for us?”

Council chair Woody McEvers said he and fellow councilors had not yet seen a master plan for the East Sherman revitalization project.

Without the master plan, due later this year, he and the other council members don’t know what’s proposed for the area and therefore, discussions of the necessity for an urban renewal area are premature.

“Do you think a master plan would come here, and we wouldn’t tear it apart and change things?” McEvers asked. “You say you’d bring it to us for adoption. That’s not good enough for me.”

Council member Dan Gookin was surprised by an urban renewal proposal as well.

“This was the first time I heard this,” Gookin said. “Seeing this on the agenda was like a real big jump start.”

Usually a proposal for an urban renewal district follows many discussions and a lot of public input, Gookin said.

“All of a sudden we have an agenda item that says, let’s do a report, let’s move forward, but we haven’t even discussed our priorities,” Gookin said. “I would like to see a lot more transparency in this process, because my experience with government is when we do eligibility reports, they always come out thumbs up.”

Council members Dan English, Amy Evans and Kiki Miller voted to have the city join the effort to determine if the two areas are eligible for URD status, while Gookin, McEvers and Ron Edinger voted against it.

The council adopted a plan instead to have a televised workshop to discuss options for both potential urban renewal areas.

“So we can be as transparent as possible,” Gookin said. “I would like to supply everyone with more information.”