Hayden comp plan tested in council meeting

Hayden residents came to the Hayden City Council meeting irate with a proposed annexation amendment that would increase density in a largely undeveloped swath west of Atlas Road.

Viking Construction submitted a request to amend the Armstrong Annexation agreement from 2013, a roughly-80-acre stretch of the Bluegrass Annexation south of Hayden Avenue near Huetter Road. While zoned R-1, the plot has an agreement that caps development at four homes per acre.

While technically not a request for a zone change, the request was widely seen as an attempt to increase density. Word of a proposed zone change spread online, with residents calling through social media to voice their concerns to City Hall, either by email, by phone call, or by showing up to Tuesday night’s meeting. Because of limited capacity due to COVID-19, only 15 were allowed inside, leaving others to either join via Zoom or go home.

One of those who was not able to join in person was Tina Marie Busby.

“This council has become increasingly deaf to the residents of Hayden,” Busby said virtually during the public comment portion of the meeting. “Throughout this pandemic, people are hindered from being represented, and this is problematic.”

Hundreds of online comments about the prospect of additional growth on a diminishing prairie stoked a full council chamber and a full virtual panel. Council member Jeri DeLange said the growth issue that has stirred the emotions of locals has been compounded by the constraints of the pandemic.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t allow everyone here, and I hope you understand the reason for that,” she told the crowd. “As elected officials, we listen to everyone. We can’t always make everyone happy … I always do my best, just like the other council members and the mayor.”

Ray Kimball of Whipple Consulting, the engineering firm working in concert with Viking Construction, said the online chatter was inaccurate before dropping a comment that did not go over well with council.

“I understand the general public may not have the education that I do,” Kimball said. “… These decisions you make are not done in a vacuum.”

Amending the original agreement would soften the property for a potential zoning change. When council pressed Kimball on how many units the applicant planned to accommodate, the engineer of 21 years said he didn’t know.

“I’m not prepared to answer that,” he said.

A zone change could also enable the property to adjust from residential-only to mixed-use, a matter the applicant’s team cited as a necessity in keeping with Hayden’s newly-passed comprehensive plan. It was also a point that drew debate among the council members about wanting to develop the local job market while slowing exorbitant housing prices. When told the comprehensive plan did not legally force the council to vote in favor of the request, council member Dick Panabaker lamented all the work city staff had put into the project.

“Then why the hell did we do it?” he asked.

Council member Matt Roetter said the feedback he’s received since the proposed amendment landed on the council agenda was overwhelmingly against the request. He said he wants to look at slowing growth, which he said was costing Hayden its quality of life, bringing more traffic and possibly endangering a critical area resource.

“I have concerns about the Rathdrum Prairie aquifer,” Roetter said. “We have to put houses across all of that? That’s a water source for 500,000 people.”

But DeLange said that the increased density many residents fear is inevitable, and that one of the principles Hayden holds so dear — property rights — is also a double-edged sword in the fight against growth.

“We can’t keep people out,” she said. “People are going to be moving here, and people buy property. They have rights. As elected officials, we also have to protect people’s property rights.”

Ultimately, after a meeting that stretched longer than three-and-a-half hours, the council voted to table the matter, asking for additional information about the comprehensive plan’s role in future decisions.

But some said that future already lacks the appeal of Hayden’s past.

"I’ve lived in the Hayden and Coeur d’Alene area for the last 24 years,” resident Tacey Keylon told the council. “… I am very saddened and disappointed the Hayden and Coeur d’Alene area I grew up in no longer exists.”