Residents asked to weigh in on Bonner County’s rural character

By Susan Drumheller
Reader Contributor

“Rural” is difficult to define, but how to protect that character is at the heart of the debate over the future Land Use Map for Bonner County.

The county Planning Commission recently unveiled its proposed Land Use Map, which will drive how and where growth occurs in the county. The map was created without public workshops, and has already received a preliminary OK from the Bonner County commissioners. 

But the new map fails to respond to local fears that Bonner County could soon look like the Rathdrum prairie, a checkerboard of five-acre residential parcels gobbling up all open space. 

Courtesy image.

To measure support for the proposed Land Use Map, Project 7B and a group of rural residents — the Bonner County Rural Lifers — have created a short survey to gather input. The results of the survey will be shared with the Planning Commission at the first public workshop on Tuesday, July 16.

Go to bit.ly/3KLCpjl and let your thoughts be known. You can also attend the July 16 public workshop in person to share your opinions. 

The Land Use Map is part of the County’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan and is a visionary document — a blueprint for growth. The Planning Commission is currently updating the last, and perhaps most important chapter of the Comp Plan, which includes the map.

The map is critical because it is the visual embodiment of the Comp Plan, showing where different types of land uses can occur. Key to creation of the map should be public input. 

The next step is to update the code to follow the policy direction of the Comp Plan. However, the commission is trying to do both at once, which has resulted in a map that is oversimplified and very different from the current Land Use Map. 

Essentially, the commission lumped the smaller rural residential land uses with larger agricultural and forest areas into one general “Rural” category (indicated in blue) for most of the county. This has raised alarms among residents in rural areas, as well as advocates for forestry, open space and the environment. 

The new map is a near-total sea of blue outside cities, indicating that almost the entire county would be one single “Rural” land use designation. This approach does not address local fears that Bonner County could start seeing a lot of low-density residential sprawl into the farmlands and hinterlands.

The county’s original Comp Plan more or less allowed five-acre minimums everywhere. Then when it was updated in 2004-’05, area ranchers and others urged the county to adopt land use designations to protect larger landscapes for agriculture and timber.

In 2022, the previous Bonner County commissioners handed the job of updating the Comp Plan again to the Planning Commission. They declined requests to hire a consultant with experience in public engagement. As a result, public involvement is relegated to the end of the process, instead of the beginning. 

To their credit, the planning commissioners tackled the task and worked hard, relying heavily on the subarea plans. These plans were developed by volunteers serving on five different area committees. (However, none of the subarea committees suggested such a big change in the map.)

The Planning Commission also analyzed recent growth patterns, and the number of available vacant lots, and found that zoning doesn’t necessarily need to change to accommodate projected growth for the next 10 years.

The land use designations, which are shown on the Land Use Map, indicate general types of land uses and where they are appropriate (which is somewhat subjective). Zoning is the next step, which will determine density and allowable lot sizes within the large sea of “Rural” indicated on the proposed map. 

The Planning Commission says the zoning will largely stay the same, but that is not clear by the Land Use Map. By the proposed map, the “Rural”category could mean five-acre residential lots or large farms occurring pretty much anywhere.

Given the trend of zone changes and the law of attrition, it’s conceivable that over time the highest density zoning will become dominant, with most everything eventually becoming five-acre parcels.

Planning commissioners believe they can prevent this by writing better codes to maintain the current zoning. But their reasoning for making the entire map “Rural” is the difficulty in distinguishing between areas appropriate for larger versus smaller lot sizes. If they can’t do it at the Comp Plan stage, it’s unclear how they plan to make it bulletproof at the zoning stage.

Having a Land Use Map that accurately shows the public’s will and vision for the future will help ensure that low-density residential sprawl does not destroy the rural quality of life that makes Bonner County such a great place to live. Strong policies to reduce the frequency of Comp Plan amendments is also needed to protect the integrity of the Land Use Map.

It’s not too late for the citizens of Bonner County to weigh in. Please fill out the “Rural Character Survey” at bit.ly/3KLCpjl and consider attending upcoming workshops and hearings on this important issue. 

Susan Drumheller is a board member of Project 7B, a local nonprofit whose mission is to educate and empower the public to engage in land use planning, and advocate for responsible growth. Visit project7B.org for more information.