March 5, 2006
Commissioner Roger B.
Jackson
420 Main Street
P.O.
Box 1300
Idaho City, Idaho 83631
Dear Commissioner,
My name is Gary Zimmerman and I
live in Garden Valley. I am writing you
this note to express my strong support of a Garden Valley
Planning and Zoning District as well as the Garden Valley
Planning Committee. I also request your support in the
proposed Garden Valley Planning and Zoning District as well as
the other matters described below.
I feel that a separate planning
and zoning district for Garden Valley would permit its
citizens to better plan the growth of their community. I
believe with the advent of Tamarack and explosive property
values in neighboring communities that it is a critical to be
able to better plan for growth, and to ensure that it meets
the tenets laid out in the Boise County Comprehensive
Plan.
I would also like to see the
County’s Comprehensive Plan updated for content and not just
statistics. At the recent County Planning and Zoning meeting
in Horseshoe Bend to review the Comprehensive Plan, I felt
that Kathie Brady simply wanted the Plan rubber-stamped
without regard to several residents voicing concern over the
content of the plan: such as reflecting that the economy of
the County has swung away some from timber – and adopting
guidelines that properly take that shift into account. I would
like to see County residents have an additional 120 days to
comment and affect changes on this plan prior to your
review.
As I consider the growth we face
in the County, and in Garden Valley in particular, I
feel it is important to highlight the key things that I would
like to see in this County and my Community:
(1) preserving the rural
character of the Garden Valley area,
(2) preserving access to
public lands and available trails,
(3) ensuring that roads are
capable of meeting the traffic needs for years to come,
(4) Creating ordinances
that put greater teeth into the existing Subdivision and
Development Ordinances in areas such as minimizing the impact
of development on current services and their costs, and
(5) maintaining reasonable
taxes.
Additionally, I would like to
see an increased focus on ensuring that all requirements are
met for subdivisions prior to their approval as it is my
understanding that in some cases DEQ approvals, and related
issues, have not been met prior to The County approving those
subdivisions. I realize that The County has limited resources
and that this becomes a difficult task. However, I feel it is
a very positive step to have the citizens of Garden
Valley
stepping up and beginning to support the effort to create a
separate Garden Valley Planning and Zoning district. I believe
that this is a good first step for, in the future,
incorporating more of the greater Garden Valley area, and
being able to have greater local leadership for these issues.
Lastly, I want to comment on
accessibility of political matters such as subdivision
approvals to residents of Garden Valley. I have two
concerns in this regard. The first is that the current
rotation of locations being “followed” by Kathie Brady,
Director of the County P&Z, frequently makes it
impractical, if not impossible, for Garden
Valley
citizens to participate directly in development matters
directly related to their community. An example of this is the
upcoming P&Z meeting on March 16th, where
several Garden
Valley subdivisions
are up for review, is being held in Idaho
City. I
have already contacted Kathy and voiced my concern with this,
but have not heard a response. I understand others have heard
Kathie respond that she is unwilling to change the
“rotation”.
The second issue is practical
availability of documentation for planned subdivisions prior
to their review. A case in point is Southfork Landing. I would
like to understand fully the economic, traffic, and
environmental impact of this subdivision. There is simply
inadequate access to this documentation in Garden
Valley to
be adequately prepared. I have seen a partial set of
documents, but most of this detailed information is missing.
Upon requesting this
information, I learned from Kathie Brady that we would have to
pay $307 (or so) for the documents. It is my understanding
that the Garden Valley Library has an abbreviated copy, but
not the full set of documents.
I find it hard to believe that
these documents are not made easily available to Garden
Valley’s
citizens. I would strongly recommend that any action on
Southfork. Landing be tabled until the residents can truly
understand the impact of that development, and what the
Developer has proposed.
Best Regards,
Gary Zimmerman
