Balancing the protection of natural resources with private property rights, providing sufficient wildfire management and preserving ground water supplies are focal points of a comprehensive plan forwarded last week to Kootenai County commissioners.

For the past 18 months, the county’s planning and zoning commission has been working on updating the comp plan through a series of workshops and public hearings that culminated last week when commissioners voted 4-3 to forward its revisions to commissioners.

The comp plan is a blueprint that will guide how rural areas in the county grow and develop during the next several years by providing a broad statement of community goals and policies. The plan was last updated in 2010.

Despite division among planners, Commission Chairman David Levine said the updating process was respectful and enlightening for all sides.

“My job as chairman is to make sure that everyone is heard — and we all were,” he said. “Whenever you have a document like this, people never get exactly what they want, so there’s compromise along the way.”

Levine was among the majority supporting the plan, which will be considered next month by county commissioners.

Kootenai County Community Development Director David Callahan applauded the planning and zoning commission for its efforts in streamlining the comp plan to make it more user-friendly.

“They eliminated 347 policies that were verbose, overlapping or unnecessary and really put things in plain English,” Callahan said. “It will be much easier for the public to get a quick sense of county policy.”

Callahan said land use issues attracted broad attention from differing perspectives throughout the update process.

“You had certain groups like the Coeur d’Alene Tribe with a high interest in environmental protection issues,” he said. “And then there were groups like the Northwest Property Owners Association who want less government involvement overall and are worried about the government overreaching.”

Keeping the public involved in the process was a top priority throughout the process, Levine said. Since last April, the commission held five public meetings attended by around 150 people. The commission also accepted written comments.

“We received a significant amount of feedback,” Levine said. He estimated the commission made 60 changes to goals, objectives and policies based on citizen input.