Developers might plan, pay county online

The Kootenai County Planning Department could soon make land-use applicants' days a little easier.

The county commissioners will decide today whether to approve testing a PayPal credit card transaction service at the Planning Department, which would allow applicants to pay application fees online.

The new service would be in step with the other technological updates the department has adopted like electronic plan review, said planning Director Scott Clark.

"We're really hopeful it (testing) goes well. It's another way for people to make their applications easier and quicker," Clark said. "With that (online payment), you could do most or the whole process from home or at the office."

He doesn't know how long testing of the system will take, he said, but he hopes the department will start using it soon.

"The idea of online payment has been looked at for some time, and this is the method that, depending on the outcome of testing, is our hopeful direction," Clark said.