COEUR d'ALENE - It's been years in the making, but Scott Clark said the final draft proposal for Kootenai County's controversial Unified Land Use Code is expected to be released for public comments within the next few days.

Clark, community development director for the county, said there is a copy of the draft proposal online, but he is making some minor changes to the document before printing a version for public review.

"Actually, you can go online right now and make comments on the plan," he said, adding the web address is http://www.zoningplus.com/regs/kootenai. "In fact, for someone with computer access, that is the best way to see how this may affect your property."

The Unified Land Use Code (ULUC) is an attempt to update the county's development regulations in a way the reflects the county's comprehensive plan for growth.

The county started the process of updating the regulations after the county commissioners adopted their comprehensive plan in 2010.

"This ULUC process is really just the implementation of that plan," Clark said. "The comprehensive plan is the community's vision for growth, and the ULUC spells out how to get there."

Up until now, county planners have been using 30 different land use ordinances - many of which conflicted with each other - to manage growth since the last county comprehensive plan was adopted in 1994.

"There was no connectivity between those ordinances," Clark said. "We had four of five different definitions of what a structure was depending on the ordinance we were looking at.

"Now we have the regulations all in one place, and we only have one definition for a structure."

The new regulations have been controversial, but that was to be expected, Clark said, adding many different people are impacted by the change.

"With the new codes, some things are going to change," he said. "People should really go online and you can search for your property to see what the changes are."

Clark said he wants to hear from those who are impacted, and he hopes that by working with those citizens most of those controversial issues can be resolved.

"Hopefully through this process we can come to an agreement as a community," he said. "That's the best thing that could happen out of all this."

County Commissioner Dan Green, who led the county through the comprehensive plan update as the former chairman of the county's Planning Commission, said many of the development regulations they were using were drafted in the 1970s.

"Many of the land uses that they were designed to regulate have shifted," he said, adding this process was necessary to update them.

Green said the planning commission has held more than 125 public meetings, some of which he took on the road to the more remote areas of the county.

"But I am still encouraging citizens to make specific comments on the proposal because we are not done yet," he said. "We are still looking for ideas."

Community input that has been received to date was used to shape the new ULUC proposal, and a technical advisory committee went through the document line-by-line and recommended sending it out for public review. That technical committee was comprised of appointees from various special interest groups throughout the county.

Now, Green said it's important for the public to review the document and comment on it before it is proposed to the planning commission on June 17, and ultimately to the county commissioners later this fall.

The county will mail out notices to all county residents who live in the unincorporated areas of the county. That notice will include all the information on how to access the proposal and how to formally comment. The regulations do not impact property that is within the city limits.

Both Clark and Green said the county will use those comments to further refine the document before the document goes before the commissioners for final approval.

"This is where we make the tough decisions," Green said. "Do we want 5-acre, 10-acre or 20-acre lots?"