BOCC asks Sandpoint, Dover, Kootenai, East Hope to redraw area of impact maps

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

The Bonner County board of commissioners held a special meeting June 16 to consider seven new area of impact map proposals for the cities of Sandpoint, Dover, Kootenai, Ponderay, Hope, East Hope and Clark Fork, and to resolve land disputes between neighboring entities. 

Over the course of four hours, commissioners voted to approve the new AOIs for Ponderay, Hope and Clark Fork, and requested that the remaining cities alter their maps to better reflect anticipated growth.

The hearing stemmed from changes made to Idaho Code 67-6526, which the Legislature passed and Gov. Brad Little approved in 2024. The alterations limit cities’ influence over their surrounding areas by reducing AOI to within two miles of the city’s boundaries, requiring that cities prove all property within the area is “very likely to be annexed” within the next five years, in addition, requiring cities and counties to reevaluate the AOIs every five years.

Adding or removing property from AOIs does not constitute annexation and does not affect taxation, county zoning or residents’ addresses.

Though the city of Dover reduced its previous AOI by 3,800 acres — and Sandpoint proposed a reduction from 12.3 to 3.4 acres — the two cities could not agree on jurisdiction over a contested area near Ontario Street and Chuck Slough.

According to Bonner County Planning Director Jake Gabell and the county’s staff reports, Dover provided “current planning efforts and service capacity evaluations” for the disputed area and showed updates to its “wastewater collection and water service master plans,” as well as infrastructure upgrades in the area that would support annexation. Sandpoint likewise submitted evidence of nearby utilities that could extend into the contested property.

Representing Dover, Clare Marley, of Ruen-Yeager and Associates, as well as Sandpoint Planning and Community Development Director Jason Welker stated that neither city had plans to annex the area within the next five years. Moreover, according to Marley, the area’s homeowners indicated that they did not want to be included in either AOI. For those reasons, the commissioners voted to remove the disputed land from both areas of impact.

The commissioners further questioned whether Dover or Sandpoint would expand as much as they planned for in the AOIs and voted unanimously to remand the maps back to their respective cities to further reduce them.

The cities of Ponderay and Kootenai had a similar dispute over 18 properties north of the Union Pacific Railroad tracks along McGhee Road.

“Ponderay contends these properties are better connected to its infrastructure network, citing road maintenance, pedestrian improvements and planned transportation connections,” said Gabell.

As justification for the claim, Ponderay demonstrated planned road connections from McGhee to U.S. Highway 95 and plans for additional roads in a 200-acre development on the west side of McGhee.

Ponderay has annexed three properties amounting to 95.76 acres in the past 10 years, according to Gabell. The city considered more annexations but found that city infrastructure did not justify incorporating the properties and thereby raising the owners’ taxes.

According to the staff report, Kootenai did not provide “infrastructure plans, growth projections or service expansion documentation that would demonstrate near-term annexation potential” to support their claim on the land. Kootenai polled the 18 property owners and received six responses, all indicating that they did not want to be part of either AOI; but, if they had to choose, they would prefer Kootenai.

BOCC Chair Asia Williams stated that because Ponderay had already considered other annexations and denied them, it proved that the infrastructure did not support annexation of the contested area, though she acknowledged the merits of Ponderay’s claim. Commissioners Ron Korn and Brian Domke moved forward with the motion, voting 2-1 to alter Ponderay’s AOI border to the east side of McGhee. The commissioners then unanimously voted to approve Ponderay’s revised map but remanded Kootenai’s back to the city, requesting a reduction to comply with likely growth in the immediate future.

There was no contested property between Hope and East Hope, and so commissioners unanimously approved Hope’s AOI. However, because East Hope included land encompassing the city’s watershed — which it did not intend to annex — the BOCC again remanded the map to the city.

“I have questions on just saving land and extending — keeping a boundary — where you identify that you’re not actually growing into because we’re not here just to repeat the same map,” said Williams.

“I see the argument for why they want to pull that into their area of impact, but without a plan — and if you can state in this hearing that they have enough availability of water to address their current needs — that means that they’re not going to grow in that direction,” she later added.

Finally, the commissioners unanimously approved Clark Fork’s proposed AOI without issue.