It’s All About Woodbury

It’s a quick report this week. The city council talked about developments, and the county commissioners talked about budgets. Let’s look at the details!

Read the full transcript of the video below:

How’s it going y’all? Aiden Anderson here with the Moscow Minutes. It’s all about Woodbury this week at the city and all about budgets this week at the county. Let’s get into it!

The city meeting kicked off with the appointment of Ashlynn Warner to the sustainable environment commission and an acceptance speech from Nathan Tupper for his appointment to the fair and affordable housing commission. The council then moved into two public hearings related to changes taking place with the Woodbury subdivision.

The first public hearing focused on a major Planned Unit Development or PUD amendment and replat to the Woodbury 1st addition. Mike Ray of city staff conducted a summary and explanation of the current situation on the 21.73 acre property.

The applicant, Wintz LLC, requested a change to the development that allows them to add an additional 29 lots to the existing 52 on the same area of land. This is all part of the developers larger plan to fully develop the remainder of an 81 acre property over the course of the coming years.

In the proposed amendment, Mike Ray highlighted a number of the new housing designs, alongside plans for different neighborhoods styles and parking plans. Infrastructure improvements for this first phase are largely completed. The Planning and Zoning Commission previously held a public hearing on the subject, and recommended approval with one condition, that Wintz LLC would update the development’s stormwater report.

Council initially asked a lot of questions related to parking and water flow infrastructure in the area, as availability of parking and sufficient infrastructure were both concerns which emerged from the initial overview of the proposal. Staff answered what questions they could, and additional clarity was provided by the developer themselves, when the mayor opened the public hearing to additional input.

Public testimony included the testimony of a current resident of the neighborhood who shared his positive experience with the development and his desire to see the project continued. Another member of the public gave testimony in opposition, voicing his concerns regarding infrastructure expansion, permitting difficulties, limited access to certain proposed buildings via firetruck, and alleging that the city’s reimbursement process to the developer for infrastructure work violated Idaho code.

During deliberations, staff addressed the concerns presented by the opposition, indicating that some of the concerns were unwarranted, and that some of them would be dependent on further permitting processes required during the construction of the buildings on the property. Eventually, the city voted to approve the PUD unanimously, and to approve the replat with one condition 4-1, with Hailey Lewis being the dissenting vote.

Next up, a much shorter public hearing on the same subdivision. In order to move forward with the development plans for the replat, the developer has to vacate the right of way in certain areas of the neighborhood. In this case, the areas to be vacated include portions of Ashton Lane and Woodbury Drive. This public hearing had no public testimony and minimal deliberation, and the city council approved the vacation request 4-1, with Hailey again being the dissenting vote.

Now for the county. I confess I did not get to see the action item portion of the county commissioner meeting, but I did get to watch the budget workshop which the county conducted this week.

Now obviously, the county is gearing up for the coming fiscal year, same as the city. They’ve had a couple different budget workshops already, covering different subjects. This week, the newly elected commissioners, Stooks and Johnson, reviewed the portion of the budget related to county salaries alongside the county clerk, finance officer, treasurer, and county assessor.

The majority of this meeting had less to do with particular numbers and more to do with how the county has been calculating its employee salaries in order to keep them competitive with existing market conditions. This included a discussion of benefits, COLAs, and the impact which increasing property taxes might bring to county finances.

The county has not yet finished putting their budget together, so I won’t get into the details at the moment. That said, the county is more heavily restricted by state legislation than the city when it comes to what they can spend money on and how much they have available to spend. The new commissioners, meanwhile, are receiving a full on-the-job education as to how the county’s finances work, and how they might be able to impact them going forward.

That’s all I got for you this week. When the county budget comes out, we’ll be sure to go over it as we have with the city. In the meantime, you can look at the county budget requests for the coming fiscal year by going to the Auditor page on the Latah County website. 

As always, we’ll have the relevant links posted with this video, and if you have any questions, please reach out! I’m Aiden Anderson with the Moscow Minutes. We’ll see you next time!