County seeks input on future vision for area

As the county commissioners wrestle with what the comprehensive land-use plan for the county intended with regard to industrial zoning, the county's new growth and development director, Brent Butler, is already launching a project to conduct a full review and revision of that crucial document.

Comprehensive land use plans, known as "comp plans," are the "strategy" for how land will or won't be used in the county. Zoning ordinances are the "tactics" by which those general concepts are specifically implemented.

The county's original comp plan was created in 1994. At that time, the county had no true zoning laws, but was facing a number of proposals that demonstrated the need for them.

In 2004, the plan was reviewed and updated (state law requires it be reviewed at least every ten years), and again in 2007 some minor changes were made to the plan. Unlike zoning ordinances, which can be changed fairly quickly, changes in the comp plan require at least a six-month "gap" from one change to the next.

But the recent controversy over the AEHI nuclear plant rezone proposal, and confusion over what the plan intended with regard to industrial development, has indicated to many county officials a need for a more extensive review and updating of the plan, and Butler began working on that project almost from the day he started in the job earlier this spring.

In the next two years he hopes to involve the community in a debate over the future of the county, part of a seven-step process to update the plan that he calls 2030 Vision.

"I want input from everyone," he said. "It is important that we look at where we are, and create a vision for where we want to be 20 years from now.

"A strict adherence to the comp plan gives the community assurance that its vision will be fulfilled," he explained, "and it has to be done comprehensively. We need to look at all aspects of the county, decide what we want, where we want things to grow and what we want to preserve.

"I'm seeing too many people not coordinating" planning efforts, he said, "and a comp plan is supposed to be a coordinated document."

In the first step of the process, which he envisions proposing to the county commissioners within the month, he wants to begin working with elected officials "and key stakeholders," including the county and city planning and zoning commissions, the school and highway districts, state and federal government agencies, the military and area tribes, major employers in the county, and a wide cross section of non-governmental groups such as the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the Snake River Alliance's local chapters, recreation organizations and other groups with a stake and interest in how the land is used and what types of growth should be encouraged and what types should be discouraged.

In step two, he wants to develop a "visioning questionnaire" to be sent our to a random but representative part of the general public to explain the findings of the first step and solicit input on the third step, which would be going to communities throughout the county for a series of "town hall" meetings to "establish 20-year planning goals and objectives, and prioritize them for Atlanta, Pine, Featherville, Prairie, Glenns Ferry, Mountain Home and King Hill."

Step four would be to incorporate what is learned in the first three steps with the census data that should be available in early 2011.

Step five would be to develop a draft of the 2030 Vision document and present it to the public for comment in advance of step six, formal review and public hearings by the county planning and zoning commission. The process would conclude with adoption of the final document "which outlines a path to achieve the community's goals and objectives until 2030" by the county commissioners.

"It's important that people get involved early in the process," Butler said, before final documents are created that would go to hearings, because at that point the documents tend to get "set in stone" and it becomes difficult to make major changes.

And Butler is proposing a subtle change in how people think about the comprehensive plan. Usually, he noted, people tend to concern themselves with issues of the moment, existing conditions and proposals, when they prepare comp plans. But what he wants is for people to start thinking ahead to what type of world they want their children and grandchildren to live in.

And that means exploring the widest range of ideas about what might happen and how people would like to see the county grow over the next 20 years.

"Visioning processes that historically have failed did so because they were too narrow in focus in the beginning.

"When the current plan was developed, nobody ever thought about things like nuclear power plants or wind farms. The vision was too narrow.

"That's why step one has to be the most important stage, it has to have the widest possible input."

Ideas can come from anywhere and anyone. They don't have to wait until the town meeting or hearing stages. "Just call us. Let us know your idea. We'll then put them all together" for proposals to the communities.

"Many people in this community are very knowledgeable" about the history and potential of the county, "and we have to contact them and mine their expertise.

"The question we want to ask people is 'what do they want'?

"For example, people say they want jobs, but not nuisances. But we need details, and I need to know ahead of time, so it is in the plan.

"And I don't want what interests them today, but what they want 20 years from now."

To get that kind of input, Butler says it is often necessary to ask people to look even further into the future. "What do they want 100 years from now? What do they want for their grandchildren.

"Go back 100 years and look at where this county was. Did people envision the county it is today? We need to be looking at the long-term vision."

That means any idea, no matter how strange it may seem today, is worth considering.

And the planning shouldn't be involved in just looking at agriculture, industry and residential development, he said, but needs to take in other concerns as well, such as how much land should be set aside for wildlife preservation, what should be done for recreation, what resources -- economic, cultural and historical for example -- should be protected, "and what we should do to create 'healthy' communities."

"We want to hear from both young and old," Butler said. "We want everyone to get involved in thinking about the future."

And in the end, he said, he hopes to see a vision for that future develop that will result in "a comprehensive plan with neighborhood components," and a plan that will "guide us to the future we want."