Cove Springs nears deliberation phase
Public comment period for 308-lot development ends today at 5 p.m.
By JASON KAUFFMAN
Express Staff Writer
Lesley Andrus
Pepin Corso-Harris Photo by David N. Seelig
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Beginning next week, the three-member Blaine County Commission will take on the momentous task of considering whether to approve or deny what has been called the single-largest development proposal ever to come before the county. Of perhaps equal importance, the public’s last opportunity to comment on the controversial development plan will end at 5 p.m. today, Friday, Oct. 12. To meet that deadline, written comments must be hand delivered to the second floor office of the Blaine County Planning and Zoning Department in the county annex building at 219 First Avenue South, Suite 208, in Hailey. During a public hearing at the Old Blaine County Courthouse in Hailey on Wednesday, county planner Stefanie Webster said that comments postmarked but not delivered to the county P&Z Department on Friday will not be considered. The subdivision would be located five miles southeast of Bellevue on the Gannett-Picabo Road, and would be capable of supporting more than 1,000 residents.
Differing slightly from most previous meetings before the county Planning and Zoning Commission and the County Commission, Wednesday’s meeting saw close to half of the comments from the public indicating some level of support for the development. Altogether, some 26 speakers commented on the project.
One of those supporters of the project was Hailey resident Lesley Andrus, who said she doesn’t have any financial ties to the proposed development. Having looked at the development plans and toured the property, Andrus said she strongly supports the design of the project. She said the water and wildlife experts hired by the Cove Springs developers as consultants are well respected and know what they’re talking about. She said that members of the public who question the motives of these consultants are off base. “These are experts that have tremendous credibility in this community,” Andrus said.
Echoing a line many supporters of the development have stated during numerous meetings, Ketchum landscape architect Ben Young reminded the crowd that the Cove Ranch is private property. “I don’t own the property, so I can’t control what goes on,” Young said. He said the developers have done everything they can to make the project successful. “If there’s going to be a community there, let it be a community that is going to work,” Young said. As has been the case from the very beginning, the majority of speakers who stated they are involved in the south county’s agriculture industry came out with guns blazing during the meeting.
One of those speakers was Pepin Corso-Harris, a farmer hailing from the Bellevue Triangle area. In strongly worded comments, Corso-Harris warned that should the County Commission approve the Cove Springs development, the area’s water resources will be threatened. She said most people don’t understand the intricate nature of water there. “When townspeople think about water, they don’t think very far beyond the faucet,” Corso-Harris said. People in the agriculture industry have a more in-depth knowledge of water issues, and therefore their concerns about the development’s potential impacts on water should be listened to, she said.
“Water is what is going to keep agriculture in the Triangle and the south county,” Corso-Harris said. Joining her was longtime sheep rancher and former Idaho state senator John Peavey of the Flat Top Sheep Co. Peavey’s operation is located in the remote area known as Muldoon, which is the large basin northeast of Carey and the Little Wood Reservoir. Peavey said that if the Cove Springs development is approved, it would only be a matter of time before mountain bikers and other recreationists from the densely-developed community find their way over the hill heading east and into his and others’ grazing areas. Noting the impacts to his business from a large marijuana growing operation discovered in the Little Wood River drainage in 2006, he said increased recreational traffic in the area would create a similar impact. He said that disruptions created by those kinds of changes wouldn’t lend themselves to continued grazing in the area. “This will lead to the deterioration of our valley,” Peavey said. “It will be like a cancer growing across our valley.” The next meeting on the Cove Springs subdivision application will be held in the upstairs meeting room at the Old Blaine County Courthouse in Hailey at 9 a.m., Wednesday, Oct. 17. At the beginning of the meeting, which the public can attend but not comment during, the Cove Springs applicants will be given a full hour to respond to comments from the public. For questions about where and how to deliver public comments on the Cove Springs development proposal, call the county P&Z office at 788-5570.
