Blaine County is looking at opportunity cloaked in a dilemma.
If it does nothing to change current zoning laws, growth pressures could leave rural areas outside cities blighted with suburban sprawl. But change could have unintended consequences.
If sprawl continues, the view that will greet residents and visitors entering the valley at Timmerman Hill could eventually be a sea of rooftops interspersed with ribbons of blacktop instead of the milling herds of cattle there now.
While it's true that the rural areas outside the valley's cities could be developed with sensitivity under current laws, it's not guaranteed. The pressure of 10,000 new residents by the year 2025 will be impossible to resist.
The county Planning and Zoning Commission is considering new zoning laws as part of the Blaine County 2025 proposals. New development restrictions are intended to preserve a rural atmosphere, active agriculture, wildlife and water resources while concentrating residential development in and around the valley's cities.
It's a tall order. The new ordinances would rearrange the building pieces on the game board.
This week's hearings found many unhappy with the changes. That's normal whenever new zoning is proposed. But the speed with which the county released and went to hearing with the changes left little time for new ideas to sink in.
As it stands, the county is considering sweeping reductions in development densities on most lands south of Bellevue. It is proposed that rural property owners be able to transfer through sale any current development rights to an area close to Bellevue where higher densities would be allowed.
Sounds fair. Sounds simple. But zoning is clumsy. It's subject to fads and fraught with risk. For example, clustered developments that were to save agriculture yesterday are the pariahs of land planning today. Turns out that people and pets plunked down in the middle of fields didn't mix well with noisy tractors, dust, smelly cattle, and chemicals.
Counties also figured out that it costs a lot more to provide services to far-flung developments than they generate in taxes.
Thus, Blaine County 2025. The county could have stuck to business as usual. Instead, it chose the more challenging course of trying to hold development to a higher standard.
Any new zoning will have unforeseen and unintended consequences. But if the county can craft a better future, it will be worth the pain of working it out now, before the opportunity evaporates forever.
