How should Hayden grow? Residents, do tell

Thirty years ago, Hayden, Idaho, wasn’t on the map of many motorists heading north to Sandpoint or Canada, or trundling south to Coeur d’Alene on U.S. 95.

There wasn’t much to see in the community of 4,900 whose population lived mostly in neighborhoods sprinkled east of the highway around the lake, or edging the Rathdrum Prairie to the west.

Fields along North Government Way grew hay and cattle. At City Hall, a beautification project to nudge Hayden into the imagination was in the works.

It has been marvelously successful.

Thirty years later the town’s population has jumped to 15,000. Projections from the Kootenai Metropolitan Planning Organization peg its number at nearly 35,000 residents by 2040.

“That was the population of Coeur d’Alene in 2000,” Melissa Cleveland said. Coeur d’Alene’s population is around 53,000 now.

Cleveland, an engineer by trade, is Hayden’s community development director. These days, Cleveland is among city administrators who eye the projections and consider how best to manage the influx of people, businesses and development that will hit Hayden in the next couple decades.

What infrastructure upgrades will be required to meet the needs of a burgeoning population? They ask.

“There’s no way to stop the growth,” Cleveland said. “We have a lot of work to do to figure out how to handle it.”

An open house tonight between 4 and 7 at Atlas Elementary School is among the first steps for the city to collect input from residents on how to supervise population gains and where the city should direct its resources.

Tonight’s public meeting — called Imagine Hayden — will include consultants hired by the city to upgrade its comprehensive plan. The land use document was last upgraded in 2008, said city administrator Brett Boyer.

Consultants hired by Hayden to revise the city’s transportation plan — last updated in 2013 — and the Parks and Recreation plan, which has not been updated since 2007, as well as its sewer plan, a document that is seven years old, will also be on hand to engage the public.

“It’s a good opportunity for the citizens of Hayden to have a voice, and it’s a good learning opportunity too,” Boyer said.

As chunks of land once used to walk pets or to take a stroll become commercial developments, and while traffic increases, talking to representatives from Hayden’s parks and recreation department may be important for some residents.

“We have a parks impact fee that new construction pays for,” Boyer said. “Our standard is to have 5 acres per 1,000 people, and we’ve met that, but we have to look to the future.”

Sewer upgrades at a plant that is already in need of upgrades could affect construction projects, traffic bottlenecks on roads made for a much smaller driving populace must also be addressed.

Cleveland said the idea of tonight’s Imagine Hayden gathering is to document ideas.

“People will continue to move here,” Cleveland said. “We have to figure out how to grow.”

Atlas Elementary is located at 3000 W. Honeysuckle Ave. in Hayden.