BOCC hears P&Z RV park appeal

WALLACE — The Shoshone Board of County Commissioners (BOCC), heard an appeal on Tuesday afternoon from Dawn Wiksten concerning a 2020 decision from the County’s Planning and Zoning Commission.

The decision in question was the granting of a conditional use permit (CUP) for a RV park/campground on property just south of the Snake Pit, near the confluence of the North and South Forks of the Coeur d’Alene River.

The initial hearing (in early July 2020) came after a site inspection a few months prior that resulted in Shoshone County Planning and Zoning Administrator Dan Martinsen finding various unapproved site disturbances and then learning that the property owners were attempting to develop an RV park without the necessary permits.

Upon learning of their need for proper permitting and other requirements, owners Jerry and Erica Kerr worked quickly to secure and meet all of the necessary agency requirements before submitting their proposal to the P&Z Commission for their decision.

Despite some outcry from area residents at the July hearing, P&Z issued the CUP to the Kerrs for their park stating that the concerns from the residents were valid, but they were civil in nature and that their job as commissioners was to make a decision based on the applicant’s ability to comply with the regulations.

Wiksten’s appeal is based upon Shoshone County’s well documented history of mine-waste pollution that severely damaged much of the South Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River’s banks and riverbeds as heavy metal-laden waste was wantonly discharged into the river during the mining industry’s heyday up until the mid-1980s.

Wiksten’s appeal, according to Shoshone County rule, has some merit, but she finds herself quite literally on the outside looking in when it comes to the situation.

When a planning and zoning decision is to be made, anyone living within 300 feet of where said decision is to be determined is given notice of the hearing — Wiksten’s property falls just a few feet from that threshold.

Her issues with the campground’s levels of contaminated soil and alleged lack of warning to its tenants is the basis of her appeal, as well as some issues regarding an allegedly now-corrected issue with how the campers and RV were handling their septic disposal.

According to Wiksten’s attorney in the matter, Scott Poorman, various pieces of this information were not made readily available for the P&Z Commission when they made their decision

Poorman, who specializes in zoning, land use and development law, contended that had Wiksten been given adequate notice of the initial hearing, she would have made sure that all of the information surrounding potential contamination would have been put before P&Z.

“It’s not about restrictions or restricting growth,” Wiksten said in a previous interview. “We are concerned with the contamination and there has been nothing done to cap or remove the contaminants in this particular area.”

According to BOCC Chairman Mike Fitzgerald, when appealing a P&Z decision, no new information may be entered, which is why Poorman claimed that Wiksten isn’t looking for the BOCC to overrule P&Z, but in fact to ask P&Z to re-look into the application for the CUP, and look at all of the information and then make a determination on it.

The BOCC heard Wiksten and Poorman out, but elected to not rule on it until after they could discuss it privately as a board, as well as with Shoshone County’s legal team.

The Shoshone News-Press will report on their decision.