COEUR d'ALENE - Finished.

After a year of deliberations, the Kootenai County commissioners completed changes to the county Comprehensive Plan earlier this month, the county announced on Wednesday.

The commissioners' read-through of the plan, which will act as a road map for development in the county for at least the next 10 years, wrapped up on July 8.

Although some had criticized the officials for taking too long with the document, Commissioner Rick Currie said the 254-page plan was not something to rush through.

"It was a long haul," Currie acknowledged. "You don't approve a document just for the purpose of approving a document. Let's face it, it will set the stage for land development in Kootenai County for the foreseeable future, so that makes it an extremely important document."

The commissioners made some significant changes to the draft, which was originally authored by the county Planning and Zoning Commission, said Commissioner Todd Tondee.

"I think when people look at it, they'll see we listened to some of the comments and hopefully they'll see it as a step in the right direction," Tondee said.

Some of the bigger changes include removing density ranges out of land use designations, which the officials want to have specified in zoning ordinances, instead.

They also tweaked some details on Area of City Impacts, Tondee said.

"The intent was the same, we just cleared up some of the confusion," he said.

The process is still far from over.

As soon as plan copies are made and the document is available online, a 30-day public comment period will ensue, followed by a public hearing on the changed draft.

"We'll deliberate once that public hearing is done, and if they tell us, 'Hey, you guys missed this,' and bring out some valid points, we may make some more changes," Tondee said.

Terry Harris, executive director of Kootenai Environmental Alliance, said he feels most of the changes the commissioners made in the plan were minor.

His organization believes removing the density ranges a mistake, he added.

"We hope they can still go back and fix that," Harris said.

Completion of the Comprehensive Plan will follow with the step that was skipped after the 1994 plan was written: Creating new ordinances and regulations that correspond with the plan.

Currie said the county is already looking for a firm to hire to help with the process.

"There are lots of different opinions out there on how long it (writing the new laws) is going to take," he said. "We all want to get it done as soon as possible."