With 106 submitted public comments split 50-50 in opposition and support, the Kootenai County hearing examiner has recommended the commissioners approve a paving company's request to rezone stateline property to relocate an asphalt batch plant there.

Despite some neighbors' fears of excessive noise and pollution, Examiner Lisa Key deemed that impacts can be addressed through conditions imposed through the applicant's conditional zoning development agreement, with some added specificities.

"It feels good," said Steve Syrcle with Tri State Consulting Engineers, representing Coeur d'Alene Paving. "I think it's a step in the positive direction for us to possibly have a new home within and around the area of our like uses."

Coeur d'Alene Paving's request to rezone 116 acres west of Beck Road from agriculture to mining is "reasonably necessary and appropriate," Key wrote, "given the current zoning and land use of adjacent properties."

There are already a handful of rock and asphalt facilities within a few miles of the site, which is why Coeur d'Alene Paving has said the location is more agreeable than the plant's current site in Rathdrum, near a dense residential area.

But in her recommendation submitted on Tuesday, following a Jan. 19 hearing, Key attached the condition that the applicant's development agreement include "hours of operation and specifications for earthen berms for noise mitigation."

The agreement the applicants have submitted already includes hours of operation from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday. It states that berms will be constructed as needed.

Syrcle said the business owners, Craig Cozad and Todd Kaufman, do plan to provide an agreement with more specifics "that will help in the cause of being a good neighbor," he said.

But Hayley Lake, a neighbor of the proposed site who is opposed to the rezone, said she doesn't think the examiner's recommendation is stringent enough.

Lake would prefer several more attached conditions, like items to protect the underlying aquifer and specifying when extended hours of operation are permissible.

"I'm disappointed (Key) didn't make them adhere to a higher standard," Lake said.

Coeur d'Alene Paving initially proposed the rezone last summer. The commissioners had remanded the request back to the examiner, with the requirement that the applicants add a conditional zoning development agreement to their proposal.

The rezone request will next go before the county commissioners again, who will make the final decision. The date for the commissioners' hearing will be set once Coeur d'Alene Paving provides a modified development agreement.

Lake said she will be there to share her opinion.

"There's going to be one more round," she said.