Kootenai County Community Development
Kootenai County Community Development has the role of collecting input from developers, regulatory agencies and the general public in order to make recommendations on planning issues for the County Hearing Examiner and the Board of County Commissioners.
In July 2020, Community Development produced a report recommending approval for the Bayshore Estates Subdivision, Application No. MSP19-0006. It was signed by Hearing Examiner Joan Woodard on July 13.
Brazenly tilted to the advantage of the developer,
the report reveals the extent to which public
comment influences final Kootenai County planning
decisions. On page ten, planners state that during
the public comment period Community Development
received “an
overwhelming amount of comments in opposition”
to the subdivision proposal.
“In summary,
the opposition raised concerns with regard to
additional traffic, water supply capacity concerns,
high density of the proposed lots/homes and
associated septic drain fields, connection of
proposed roads to the existing neighborhood,
contamination of the existing water district wells,
potential degradation of the Rathdrum Prairie
Aquifer and Spokane River recharge area and lack of
open space. Staff acknowledges these concerns;
however, no factual or legal basis has been
presented to support these comments.”
The report also ignores a severe seasonal
traffic congestion problem in the
Greensferry/Riverview area that would be further
exacerbated by an additional 539 Bayshore Estates
daily vehicle trips routed through a dangerous
intersection with poor visibility. The report
approves the ingress and egress of Bayshore Estates
vehicles through narrow, poorly-maintained roads of
an existing subdivision where residents densely
park and children play.
On page three, this
document states that the Bayshore Estates subject
property is not over the Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer,
despite the fact that Kootenai County Community
Development planning staff knew – beginning with
the earlier rezoning hearing process of 2018 – that
updated USGS maps of 2005 definitively show the
Greensferry area to be over the Rathdrum Prairie
Aquifer. Worst of all, the report contains approval,
by both the Department of Environmental Quality and
Panhandle Health District, for 57 septic tanks to
be sited only 125 feet above the community well
water table.
The report states:
“While staff
understands there have been some recent studies to
suggest that a portion of the Rathdrum Prairie
Aquifer may be located south of the Spokane River,
to date, Panhandle Health District and Idaho
Department of Environmental Quality have not
adopted a new map to reflect any of the potential
findings. Based on the location of the aquifer as
depicted in the ArcView GIS Map, the PHD
requirement of one (1) dwelling per five (5) acres
does not apply. Therefore, degradation of the
Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer as it relates to septic
drain fields is not an issue.”
The November 2020 petition from Greensferry
Stakeholders to the State of Idaho for
recategorization of the Greensferry water well area
as an officially designated part of the Spokane
Valley-Rathdrum-Prairie Aquifer is a direct result
of this dangerous and insufficient Community
Development document.
In December 2020, Dave
Shults, one of the primary recategorization
petitioners, sent the following letter to David
Callahan, director of Kootenai County Community
Development:
“Many citizens and
customers of the Greenferry Water District
submitted a petition on July 22, 2020 for the
official record for the Bayshore Subdivision
approval process. The petition requested that the
property be recognized as part of the Rathdrum
Prairie sole source aquifer and that the proposed
subdivision be subjected to the 'one septic tank
for five acres' rule.
Unfortunately, the
county staff and hearing examiner gave little
consideration for this plea for protection of the
drinking water source for the water district. As
all the local regulators and water district fumble
around with the plan for a nutrient modeling study,
the petitioners continue to believe that there is
an avenue for all parties to do the right thing,
and recognize the importance of their role in
protecting the drinking water aquifer.
Because no local party seems to be finding a
positive pathway for resolving this interest of the
many concerned citizens, a new petition has been
submitted according to Idaho law, for the Idaho
Board of Environmental Quality to recategorize the
area surrounding the water district wells to be
designated as sensitive of need for protection of
ground water as is the area that has already been
designated as being over the Rathdrum Prairie sole
source aquifer….All parties have listened to the
developer’s attempt to exercise a loophole for far
too long, knowing for many years that the property
is over the sole source aquifer. It’s time to stop
this ‘hands tied’ madness.”