COEUR d'ALENE - After months of scrutiny from the public, county leaders have decided to go back to the drawing board on their controversial Unified Land Use Code proposal.

The ULUC has drawn tremendous criticism from the public.

Three business organizations held a forum on the issue earlier this year where the county's own advisory and technical committee members blasted the proposal.

The new code drew so many critics at its first public hearing the meeting had to be shut down by the fire department for being over capacity.

Now, a group of rural county land owners, who have been combing through the ULUC proposal since it was released earlier this year, are crying foul over some eyebrow-raising zoning in the proposal that nobody can seem to explain.

"Up until now we have been focused on who is getting hurt in this process," said Bill Matson, a custom home builder. "But then it occurred to us that we needed to look at who is going to benefit if this goes through."

And while they cannot prove impropriety in the creation of the new land use proposal, Matson and his colleagues say there are a lot of anomalies in the current draft that look suspicious.

"If nothing else, they are doing this with utter disregard for the comprehensive plan," Matson said. "And it looks like their intent is to create a market for TDRs (Transfer Development Rights)."

Matson is referring to a program that is used in other areas of the country, and Idaho, to transfer or sell development rights from one property owner to another property owner who wants to develop at a higher density than what is currently allowed.

John McFaddin, a former Spokane planning commissioner and real estate appraiser, is in the process of comparing the ULUC to the county's recently adopted Comprehensive Plan.

By state law, the county's land use plans are supposed to be in accordance to the findings and conclusions of the county's comp plan.

What McFaddin has found are pockets of favorable - but questionable - zoning throughout the county, and many of those pockets belong to a single landowner. The owner is Godde 1980 Trust, but efforts to reach the Godde family were unsuccessful by press time.

"Why would the consultants propose unreasonably restrictive zoning throughout the county and at the same time propose unreasonably favorable zoning in other areas?" McFaddin asks. "If adopted, this would create an imbalance in the county with too little potential to add houses in many areas and too much in others."

That begs the question: "Is there a plan to correct this problem with a TDR program? Perhaps," he said.

Gary Mitchell, a rural land owner in the Medimont area, has been researching the TDR issue, and has uncovered several instances where the county's consultant, Kendig Keast Collaborative, has been involved in developing TDR programs in other parts of the country.

In one case they found a presentation online where Kootenai County Planning Director Scott Clark and Consultant Lane Kendig gave a presentation on how to incorporate TDRs and urban planning principals into rural planning areas.

The presentation, which even proposed legislation to accomplish a TDR-based rural planning program, was made to the Rocky Mountain Planning Institute last year.

Clark denies advocating for TDRs and said that he was simply invited by Kendig to give a comparison of land use laws in Idaho and Washington.

"That is as far as my presentation went," Clark said. "I didn't have anything to do with the proposed legislation portion of that presentation."

Clark acknowledges that, in light of what is happening with the ULUC, the presentation with Kendig could be viewed suspiciously, but he added that TDRs were not included as an implementation tool in the proposed ULUC.

But McFaddin points out that TDRs are mentioned as a possible planning and implementation tool in the comp plan on page 14-27.

"A properly devised TDR program could provide incentive for preservation of resource and rural lands in the county," the comp plan states.

Clark says it is listed in the comp plan as a "possible" implementation tool, but if it were employed, it would have to go through a full public process. He wouldn't support it, he added.

McFaddin said he has no financial interest in how the ULUC plays out, but he is intrigued with what the county is trying to get through.

"I have concerns that this may not be entirely honest," he said.

Unexplainable

Most rural county land owners currently have the ability to subdivide their land into at least 5-acre parcels, under the new ULUC proposal many of those land owners will only be able to subdivide their properties into 40-acre parcels.

In the case of the Godde 1980 Trust property that contains the questionable zoning McFaddin found that the consultant proposed a 147-acre parcel be zoned Suburban, which would allow three residential units per acre.

The problem is the comp plan suggests the rugged hillside terrain near Mica Bay should remain resource land and be zoned for very low density development.

That is the most extreme example McFaddin found, but he and his colleagues have found dozens of other examples all over the county. The one thing they haven't found, however, is a reasonable explanation.

County Commissioner Dan Green readily admits that the ULUC documents and maps have a number of errors that need to be addressed, and when he learned of the suburban zone in one of the most rural areas of the county, he said he would never support that.

Neither Green nor Kootenai County Planning Director Scott Clark could explain the reasoning that went into that particular re-zone proposal other than to say it was most likely an honest mistake or an oversight.

Clark said the county's consultant, Kendig Keast Collaborative, made the maps and came up with the zoning proposals. The problem is that just before the final draft of the proposal was released for public comment, the individual who created it, Todd Messenger, left the firm for employment elsewhere.

"I am not trying to throw someone under the bus, but Todd wrote this thing," Clark said. "Todd also made a ton of changes, but were all of the changes that needed to be done made?

"Obviously not, because we are still hearing from those people."

Consultant Bret Keast couldn't explain it either, and he declined to put The Press in touch with Messenger, who apparently is the only one who can.

"I understand where some of this is coming from. Why is that suburban? I get that," he said. "Honestly, I don't know exactly how that came to be. Maybe it was done with the lake views in mind."

Back to the drawing board

Ever since the ULUC has been out for public review people have been finding unusual zoning problems all over the county. Most of them have been cases of unfavorable zoning.

Brad Corkill, owner of Whiteman Lumber in Cataldo, had his business re-zoned from industrial to a new classification called Working Lands Large, which doesn't allow industrial uses.

Nobody could explain why the re-zone took place, and Corkill was told he could secure a conditional use permit to operate the mill. Commissioner Green said at the time that maybe the Working Lands Large uses could be changed to allow some industrial uses in order to fix the problem.

Corkill just wants his industrial zoning back.

In fact, the county's position has always been that the ULUC is a work in progress, and that specific issues would be addressed before any final code is adopted.

Most of the people who have complained to The Press about their zoning issues are still working to resolve them, and say that they have little faith the issues will be resolved in their favor.

That might not be a problem soon, said Keast.

He is currently working a proposal to address the bigger picture issues with the ULUC. He said major portions of it will be re-written, and a whole new map be generated.

"It's a big ass county with a lot of properties," Keast said. "It's going to be a quite an effort."

He said his firm will be developing criteria and methodology that will be used to determine the appropriate land uses are applied to properties in the new draft.

"County staff will be doing a good part of that effort because they have the knowledge of the area," he said, adding that will also save the County money on consulting fees.

In the end, Keast said people are going to see a pretty significant difference from the existing ULUC.

"Frankly, I think it's going to be simpler to understand and more straightforward," he said. "There will be sections that look entirely different."

Keast said they may get rid of some of the more controversial zones such as Working Lands Large, and replace it with Working Lands General which would allow one unit per 20 acres instead of having one unit per 40 acres.

There is likely to be more Established Neighborhood zones, as well. That zone allows anything that has been built or is operating legally today, will remain a legal land use after the new code is adopted.

That zone would also allow people to further develop their properties through an administrative process rather than having to apply for a variance.

"Those are just a few examples of how this code is going to be simplified," Keast said.

Clark said that once the consultant has submitted a road map for how to re-evaluate the code, it will go to the commissioners for approval.

"We are shifting gears away from what we did last time," he said.