SANDPOINT — With changes to the city’s comprehensive plan in the works, city officials are proposing a temporary moratorium on new requests for rezoning of properties surrounding the airport.

Community members will have a chance to weigh in on the proposed moratorium during a public hearing on July 17.

“The temporary moratorium on new rezone requests within the airport overlay zone is proposed to allow adequate time for updates to the city’s comprehensive plan, including a section addressing the Sandpoint Airport,” city officials said in a statement earlier this week. “Like other communities across the country with airports in or adjacent to their corporate boundaries, Sandpoint adopted its airport overlay zone to help prevent hazards to air navigation.”

Through the comprehensive plan update, the city will also consider adopting best practices to ensure people living or working nearby are not exposed to unacceptable levels of noise or air traffic-related hazards, and to preserve economic viability, according to the statement.

The proposal to amend the comprehensive plan in regards to the airport was discussed during the city’s June 19 meeting. City planning and economic development director Aaron Qualls said the proposal would add a state-required chapter on the airport and its land use.

Idaho’s Airport Land Use Guidelines provide six recommended airport land use compatibility zones, Qualls said. Those include runway protection zones, lateral safety zones, critical zones, airport traffic pattern area, airport influence area and impact coordination zone. Council members became familiar with some of these, such as the lateral safety zone, during the recent zone change requests put before them.

The recommendations are intended as a starting place, Qualls said, though the composition of those zones is determined by the local jurisdiction.

An interim update to the comprehensive plan is slated for December of this year, intended to specifically address possible airport compatibility zones and other factors around the airport. Completion of the overall update is slated for fall 2020.

It was during the June 19 meeting that Qualls suggested council members consider a temporary moratorium on new zone change applications in the airport overlay until the plan amendment is completed. The suggestion came after City Council members voted on three requests for rezoning of properties surrounding the airport over the past few months.

The most recent request was before council members minutes before the comprehensive plan discussion on June 19, when they approved a partial rezone of Don Eickhoff’s 8.52-acre property at the corner of Mountain View Drive and Boyer. Council amended the proposal to allow rezoning of the eastern half of the property, as the western half falls within the airport’s lateral safety zone.

Council approved another zone change on June 5 of a two-acre parcel on Woodland Drive, owned by Eric Cookman, from industrial general to mixed-use residential. Prior to that, council members approved a zone change for Steve and Maureen Tillberg’s 8.5 acre-property at the corner of North Boyer and Schweitzer Cutoff Road in April. The decision was subsequently vetoed by Mayor Shelby Rognstad, who said the public was not given adequate opportunity to comment on the request. Rognstad denied the couple’s request for reconsideration of the veto in May as well.

City officials said in the statement that the moratorium would only apply to “new” rezone requests surrounding the airport.

The public hearing regarding the moratorium will be held during the regular City Council meeting at 5:30 p.m., July 17, in the council chambers of Sandpoint City Hall, 1123 Lake St.

For information on land use and public airports, go to bit.ly/2XjqRc8.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.