COEUR d'ALENE — Jon Harper said his company, Qualitas Co., could have built a 20-unit, two-story apartment complex on a small piece of land off Lunceford Lane in Coeur d'Alene.

"It would have been horrible and it wouldn't have looked like anything around it," Harper said. "So we decided to put in 20 little cottages that are all detached. We thought it would be better for Coeur d'Alene, and better for the user."

Building 20 small, single-story rental homes on a 1.6-acre strip of land required approval from the city of Coeur d'Alene through its Pocket Residential Development Ordinance, which was adopted in 2007 as a way to encourage the development of otherwise unused land in the city. Since the inception of the ordinance, more than a dozen "pocket residential developments" have been approved by the city, and more than 50 "pocket homes" — comprised of a mixture of single-family units, duplexes and fourplexes — have been constructed or started.

However, city officials have begun discussion on repealing the ordinance, claiming proposed pocket housing projects have "a high likelihood of resulting in a poorly designed development."

"Each time a project is described as 'Pocket Housing,' city staff is on guard and prepared to review a plan that pushes the pocket housing ordinance rules and sometimes the fire and building codes," wrote Hilary Anderson, community planning director, in a memorandum to the city's planning commission.

In her memorandum, Anderson presented multiple issues identified by personnel in multiple city departments. Those issues include concerns from the fire department that driveways and private roads in the pocket developments are too narrow and hinder ladder trucks from accessing them should a fire occur, and that pocket housing units often have more than five lots on a single driveway.

Anderson also wrote the original intent of the ordinance was to develop infill areas, which are vacant or underused parcels in existing urban areas that are already developed. But, according to Anderson, the majority of proposed pocket housing projects are not for infill areas, and are instead areas where development could have occurred as a standard subdivision.

"The planning department is proposing to repeal the ordinance rather than take a Band-Aid approach and try to fix the ordinance," Anderson wrote, adding there is a possibility her department would draft a new ordinance relating to pocket residential developments.

Harper told The Press repeal of the ordinance would have little impact on developers and, instead, could have an impact on property owners wishing to develop small parcels of land similar to the homes off Lunceford Lane. As an example, he said, with no ordinance in place or with a revised ordinance, the clients who hired him to develop the 1.6-acre parcel of land may have been forced to build attached housing.

"It could have been a two-story building peering down on everybody's backyard," Harper said. "If I lived in those people's houses, I wouldn't want people looking down at my backyard."

He also questioned the city's claims that developers wishing to build pocket housing are pushing the boundaries. Developers, Harper said, can't "push the envelope," and are only allowed to do what city inspectors sign off on.

"If it's that bad now, how could they not see it when it got started?" Harper asked. "I mean, I get it when you do something and then you tweak it a little as you go. But when you make a complete 180, you just didn't do your groundwork."