Annex hearing re-do, Take 2

By BRIAN WALKER

Staff Writer

RATHDRUM — Just when it appeared Rathdrum's largest annexation request in years was finally moving ahead, yet another bump in the road has appeared.

The City Council last week unanimously approved Bluegrass Development’s 152-acre single-family residential proposal near the southeast corner of Meyer and Lancaster roads after no one spoke in opposition during the public hearing.

However, when researching a resident's concern that the hearing may not have had all of the public notification requirements under law, the city discovered an unrelated glitch that the hearing was not published in The Press the full 15 days before the hearing. The legal advertisement ran 14 days prior to the hearing.

"We had a chance to fix the (publish date) error and our staff glanced over it," City Administrator Leon Duce said. "We should've seen that."

As a result, the city is moving forward with scheduling a new public hearing on the request Oct. 10 at 6 p.m. at the Lakeland High School Commons.

"The last public hearing filled the council chambers (with about 30 people)," said Duce. "There may be more people at this meeting so we are planning to accommodate."

After several residents voiced concerns at the Planning and Zoning hearings that the project would hamper Rathdrum's small-town feel and existing land already inside the city should be developed first, such testimony surprisingly wasn't heard at the first City Council hearing last week.

"We did have two people sign up opposed, but they chose not to speak," Duce said.

Duce said the hearing at Lakeland will be treated as a new hearing.

"If the people who participated last time want their comments considered in this meeting, we encourage them to come to speak again in front of the council," he said.

Duce said that aside from the publishing date error, the city completed all other hearing notification requirements for last week's hearing, including notifying neighbors to the property and posting the agenda outside City Hall, on the city's website and on social media.

Duce said the citizen who brought forth the concern that triggered the city's review of the notifications said that the agenda was not posted specifically on the city's Public Notice page of its website. He said that while the city generally does that as a good practice, the step is not required by the state’s open meetings law.

The notification hiccup comes after a new hearing on the proposal also had to be held at the Planning and Zoning level, in which a recommendation is forwarded to the City Council.

After the full planning board originally forwarded an approval recommendation on a 4-1 vote, a resident said a board member should have recused himself due to a potential conflict of interest. That complaint led to three others recusing themselves at the second hearing, leaving just one member to forward a recommendation for approval.

Even that recommendation was appealed by another resident who believed no quorum was present, but city and state attorneys disagreed. The City Council then voted 2-1 to deny the appeal, allowing the first hearing before the council.

Duce said the glitches have rolled into a "nightmare situation" for many of those involved, including the developers and city staff.

John Magnuson, a principal in Bluegrass Development with Tom Anderl, said he doesn't believe another delay will adversely affect the project.

"While it is frustrating, these things happen," he said. "Regardless, we will go through the process per city directives."

There could be anywhere between 200 and 600 lots in the project, depending on how the design shapes up, but around 400 is most likely.

About 10 percent of the project will feature larger lots that are a third of an acre. The plan also includes a 10-acre donation for a future elementary school in the Lakeland Joint School District.