North Lake Planing and Zoning makes changes to proposal

The North Lake County Planning and Zoning Committee spoke with Lake County Planning and Zoning Director Joel Nelson about changes needed to their proposal on Feb. 17 at Glacier Sotheby’s in Bigfork.

The committee recently learned that its proposal to incorporate the existing Lake County density designations and regulations by reference into the proposed zoning regulations for Woods Bay and Ferndale needed revisions for county compliance.

Committee members Kaye McCreedy, Kathryn Berg, Anne Moran, and committee chair Leslie Budewitz met with Nelson on Jan. 24 to go over the revisions made since the community meetings last fall, and Nelson pointed out problems with the density designations.

A community meeting was previously planned for Feb. 20, but the density conflict arose and the committee needs to address a gap in their proposed regulations before the meeting can be rescheduled.

The committee and Nelson focused primarily on density regulations along the highway and the creation of land parcels in Woods Bay.

Tony Walzenbash of Woods Bay was the only member of the public to attend the meeting last week. Walzenbash was concerned about zoning regulations that would impact his property just south of The Raven.

Budewitz addressed Walzenbash’s concerns by saying that finding a balance between residential and commercial zoning to allow residents to do things such as open bed and breakfasts was their intention.

“We want them to build shops to keep them in the community and employed, but not impact the neighborhood,” Budewitz said.

Nelson summarized the committee’s next move by saying “there are two documents for what people can do with their property, we need to mesh them into one thing.”

The committee is re-writing their proposal’s density section to include what is mandated by county regulations. Clustered community regulations will not apply to their revised proposal as neither Woods Bay nor Ferndale are within three miles of an incorporated town.

“We’re still on the same philosophy of zoning light and preserving the community we already have and providing predictability for the future,” Budewitz said.

There is no schedule in place for when the revised proposal will be brought back to the community for additional review, but committee chairperson Leslie Budewitz hopes for sometime this spring.

“Nothing stays the way it is by doing nothing,” vice chair Paul Rana said. “It baffles us, the amount of people that don’t read the publications about what we do.”

According to Budewitz, the committee has been in the paper 60 times since it formed in 2006. Rana attributed the problem to the transient population in the area such as seasonal residents who support their cause but aren’t informed on their progress year-round.

The committee’s next meeting will be March 16 at 9 a.m.

For more information, go to the North Lake County website at www.bigforksteering.org or call Leslie Budewitz at 837-6094 or Paul Rana at 837-1102.