From the Idaho Panhandle

Rezoning: Not for the Faint of Heart

By Cate Huisman, 3-07-10

	Whither Sandpoint?

Municipal zoning is not for the faint of heart. Only those who know the future can take it on with complete confidence. Sandpoint’s all-volunteer Planning and Zoning Commission doesn’t seem to have anyone that prescient, so they must make the best decisions they can with the information they have.

What they have is the Sandpoint Comprehensive Plan, a document that was debated at length in numerous community meetings and extensive city council sessions before finally being officially adopted last fall. And they have examples of zoning that other communities have used in an effort to meet similar ends. The commission is charged with moving past those examples to draft new zoning that provides for the future that Sandpointers have said they want.

The Comp Plan envisions a pedestrian-friendly commercial area in Sandpoint, with mixed land use that enables residents to live, work, and shop in homes, offices, and stores that are within walking distance of one another. The commission has tried to plan for such a future in a variety of ways, including drafting zoning that encourages the construction of residences above retail storefronts, and that allows for job-producing uses, such as light manufacturing, in the downtown. They have sought to promote pedestrian and bicycle use by limiting the ways in which car-oriented businesses (such as drive-through operations) can be built downtown, and by encouraging use of land for commercial buildings rather than parking lots.

However, ideas that seem good on paper are challenged when they run up against the reality of an economy in recession, falling property values, and increasing unemployment. Business and property owners have voiced strong reservations about the proposed changes, and these are people who have been on the ground running businesses in the community, contributing mightily to its welfare, in some cases for decades. They’re worried that they won’t be able to get funding for projects that involve a residential component; that without easy parking, fewer people will visit their stores; and that their current properties and businesses, grandfathered as acceptable uses but sometimes rendered nonconforming by the proposed zoning, will fall further in value.

The commission has adjusted its proposals in response, trying to reduce the number of sticks that cause concern and increase the number of carrots that will help the community to achieve its vision over the next couple of decades. After months of meetings in which they have labored late into the night to envision the outcomes of their rulings in an uncertain future, they passed their recommendations for Sandpoint’s commercial zones on to the city council this past week.

The council will need to review and implement the changes they see fit, balancing the Comp Plan’s vision against the concerns of the business people who are the life blood of the little town. Like the commissioners, the council members cannot be faint of heart.

From the Panhandle blogger Cate Huisman is a member of Sandpoint’s Planning & Zoning Commission.

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