City to host second joint work session on final Comp Plan draft

By Reader Staff

The Sandpoint City Council will host a second joint working session with the Planning and Zoning Commission on Wednesday, March 13 at 6 p.m. at the Sandpoint City Hall Council Chambers (1123 Lake St.), in an ongoing effort to conduct a final review of the Comprehensive Plan before it goes before the City Council for a vote.

Public comment will be accepted, but no action will be taken at the work session, which follows a similar work session on Feb. 13, in which City Council members and P&Z commissioners parsed through the first few chapters of the 138-page document.

The Comp Plan has been described by officials as providing, “A vision for the future, defined goals and policies and desired future land use character,” and meant to establish a framework for achieving that vision over the course of the following 15 years. 

The document is supposed to be updated every 10 years, but the current plan hasn’t been revised since 2009. An effort to put in place a new plan began in 2019, but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2022.

The draft document is available at bit.ly/3OaBXxH.

Open house workshops were held on April 27, Nov. 29 and Dec. 7, 2023. Further review and incorporation of comments from a joint City Council and Planning and Zoning Commission workshop — as well as a P&Z Commission public hearing — have been included in the final draft.

City officials stated that, “It is anticipated that following this working session the City Council will hold a final public hearing to consider adoption and implementation of the document.”