Following Supreme Court ruling, county grants subdivision
Reed: ‘Anybody who thinks I’m getting rich is wrong’
By TRAVIS PURSER
Express Staff Writer
The Blaine County Board of Commissioners was constrained by a Supreme
Court ruling Monday afternoon when it unanimously approved an application to subdivide 119
acres of south county agricultural land.
Landowner Virginia Reed has been trying to subdivide her Baseline Road
property for five years. The county initially approved her request in 1995, but since
then, Reed and her land have been mired in District and Supreme Court cases brought on by
an appeal her neighbors filed.
Now, an April 3 Idaho Supreme Court ruling on the matter has made it
easier for Reed and another landowner to subdivide their properties. The ruling may make
it more difficult for commissioners to deny property owners the right to subdivide
throughout the county.
In its decision, the state high court stated the county cannot deny
subdivision applications based on the county’s comprehensive plan. That’s
because the plan "does not operate as a legally controlling zoning law, but rather
serves to guide and advise the governmental agencies…," the court stated.
During Monday’s meeting, commissioners were under strict instruction
from the Supreme Court to rely on only the county’s ordinances while making a
decision.
Reed, 70, seemed relieved after the brief meeting. She commented that she
is counting on selling most of the land to ensure her future financial security.
Her situation, it seems, is like that of many south county landowners who
face a Catch-22 situation. They suffer diminishing profits from farming yet cannot sell
their land at a high price without subdividing it.
In a 1998 interview with an Idaho Mountain Express reporter, Reed
said the only offer she got for her 120 acres during the eight years it had been for sale
was $200,000.
"I wouldn’t even take that for the house," she said.
"Farmland right now, you can’t give it away."
She said she believed she could get $555,000 for 100 of the acres divided
into three parcels.
She wants to keep her home and 20 acres, she said Monday, "but
I’ll be in debt for the rest of my life," due to seven years of lawyer fees and
court costs. "Anybody who thinks I’m getting rich is wrong."
No public comment and no new information was allowed during Monday’s
hearing, but commission chairperson Mary Ann Mix spent much of the meeting reading loud
sections from the comp plan.
She said the comp plan states south county agricultural land is an asset
to the community that should be preserved.
Five- to 20-acre ranchettes, she said the comp plan states, conflict with
neighboring agricultural uses, diminish historical features of the landscape, create a
strain on public services and increase the demand for recreational uses of neighboring
agricultural land, among other things.
South county Commissioner Dennis Wright said that while he believes
Reed’s application complies with the county ordinance, the ordinance does not comply
with the comp plan.
He moved to approve the application.
The Supreme Court case affecting the commissioners’ decision Monday
also involved an application made by the Urrutia family in 1994 to subdivide a 160-acre
parcel into seven lots.
The commissioners initially approved both applications, but, upon protest
by adjoining landowners and review by Fifth District Court, later denied them. The
applicants appealed the denial to Fifth District Court, which ordered the decision
reversed, prompting the county to appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, the Blaine County Commission
approved the Urrutia application in August.
