COEUR d'ALENE - The Coeur d'Alene City Council debated late into Tuesday evening on whether to protect the historic nature of a neighborhood, or the property rights of homeowners in that neighborhood.

Single-family housing in the Fort Grounds neighborhood was the main topic of discussion again at the council meeting, and they were still trying to decide at press time.

The Fort Grounds Homeowners Association appealed the Coeur d'Alene Planning and Zoning Commission's earlier decision to deny a special use overlay zone that would restrict all building in a portion of the historic neighborhood to single family homes.

Ken Murphy, speaking on behalf of the association, gave the council a 12-minute presentation of the issue, and made a strong case for restricting the neighborhood to single-family homes.

He said a majority of the neighborhood wants the restriction and the request is supported by the city's own planning policies.

According to Murphy, 75 percent of the homeowners, controlling 73 percent of land in the neighborhood, signed a petition in favor of the zone overlay, but those numbers were called into question during a planning commission hearing in January.

During that meeting, planning commissioners were confused about the impact an overlay zone would have on landowners in the neighborhood.

Many of the petitioners who spoke in favor of the new zone overlay in January testified that it was their understanding that multi-family housing would still be allowed as a special use in the neighborhood if the new restrictions were adopted.

"What we are asking for is a special-use permit so if someone wants to build multi-family housing, we and members of the neighborhood be informed of it, and be allowed to make our input to you, who would make that decision whether that special use would be allowed," said former City Councilman John Bruning, who is also a resident in the Fort Grounds. "That is all we are asking for - not to outlaw it."

But later in that meeting, Deputy City Attorney Warren Wilson clarified that the overlay zone would actually outlaw multi-family housing along with several other land uses that are currently allowed.

It became apparent that many of the homeowners in the neighborhood were not aware that the multi-family homes would be eliminated entirely, including Councilman Dan Gookin who also sits on the planning commission. He did not attend Tuesday night's appeal hearing.

"Yes, I think we were all under that impression," he said after the commission denied the overlay request.

The confusion prompted Roxanne Gunther, who opposes the overlay, to question the validity of the petition. Gunther and her husband, Rick, prompted the petition by razing a home they owned in the Fort Grounds and building four new townhouses on their property.

"If all of you are having a problem understanding what this overlay means, do you really think the 80 people who signed the petition know what they actually signed?" she asked.

The planning commission ultimately denied the request because the overlay would only impact a few lots in the neighborhood and because of the confusion about the impacts it would have.

Rick Gunther spoke in opposition to the overlay again at Tuesday night's appeal hearing before the city council. He said neighbors were misled into signing the petition in many other ways as well.

"Some of these Fort Grounds residents feel they were misled with the original petition that was presented," Gunther told the council. "In fact, one neighbor was called a bad Democrat by Marlo Faulkner because he wouldn't sign it.

"Others were told that we were going to make the beach private and fence it off, so nobody else could use it," Gunther added. "And we were going to keep all the rest of the neighborhood off the beach."

He said more stories are surfacing from neighbors who don't understand the full impact of what the overlay means to their property rights. Some of them have asked to have their signatures removed from the petition.

Murphy acknowledged that some neighbors did remove their names from the list, but they still had an overwhelming majority of the residents in favor of the new zoning.

That appeared to be case, as many of the 39 people who attended the council meeting to weigh in on the subject spoke in favor of the overlay zone.