New city in the wings is big surprise
While Ketchum and Sun Valley slumbered, a new city was conceived?right on their doorsteps.
While Ketchum and Sun Valley were lauding blueprints that call for low building densities guaranteed to push development outside their boundaries, Blaine County approved an overlay to encourage affordable housing that could result in a developments with populations bigger than the two cities combined.
This blew a hole in an unwritten decades-long consensus among local governments that high-density developments belong in the cities not the more rural county.
Ketchum city officials were snoozing safe in the knowledge that they had handed off housing?s political hot potato to the county by funding the Blaine County Housing Authority, Blaine County Commissioners approved the overlay unanimously. With the cities asleep, the county stepped in.
Up to 10 units per acre could be developed on the 180 undeveloped acres in the overlay district?more than double the previous maximum. At build-out the overlay could result in a population of between 3,500 and 4,000 people, nearly matching the existing population of both Ketchum and Sun Valley.
The cities? sleepy attitudes made it easy for this to happen with little debate.
Consequently, most of the county is only now awakening to the idea of developments as populous as a new city south of Ketchum.
Ketchum in particular should have been concerned. With the city taking a pass on the big questions, they weren?t asked, or answered.
For example, where will between 1,800 and 3,000 cars park in Ketchum?
Both cities should have asked questions about impacts on public services and the effects of sewage flows through a small, private treatment plant on the Big Wood River. Will residents rely on the cities to respond to police and fire calls? Who will pay the cities to respond? Will payments cover the costs? Or will the county increase funding for its own emergency service providers? Where will the county find the money? Can the private plant handle projected sewage flows without damaging the river.
Debate on the overlay was sparse. Approval was a matter of ?Don?t ask, don?t tell.? The cities didn?t ask, and the county didn?t tell. Though the county met the legal public notice requirements before approving the overlay, it did not go beyond them.
New subdivisions within the overlay have just begun to seek the county?s approval. It?s time, this time, for the cities to ask questions, and the county to answer.
