(Spirit Lake)– An amendment to Dickinson County’s Zoning Ordinance was the topic of a public hearing at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. It requires new homes that are constructed to have what’s known as a “foundational as built site plan” completed by a licensed engineer or land surveyor.
The amendment was previously adopted for the R-3 zoning district but the R-4 district was left out due to a technicality. Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors voted to include the R-4 district as well. Dickinson County Planning and Zoning Administrator Megan Kardell says the amendment gives her office some enforcement authority…
“Basically these amendments to the R-3 and R-4 district allows our offices to have checks, balances and enforcement once a permit has been approved to ensure the contractors are being held accountable to construct what has truly been permitted. We do have wonderful contractors and hopefully this will help them as well as our office with enforcement as well. And the also the thought behind the foundational as built instead of completed would be to, when something is completed it’s hard to correct a two or five inch error, whatever the error could be, if we catch it right away with the foundational as built they can correct it at that time. That was the logic behind Planning and Zoning’s foundational as built. In essence, though, there will be two site plans: one submitted with the permit and the second one would be submitted after the foundation has been established.”
One person who spoke at Tuesday’s public hearing said he feels regulation is overreach…
“Area builders are certainly talented enough to know what would be required for building. They would have their own methods and can hire this service if they feel they need it. Generally they will do this anyway to protect themselves. Therefore it’s self-regulating. It shouldn’t be part of our ordinance. This amendment would add unnecessary regulatory burden and costs to the construction of new homes.”
The supervisors voted 5-0 to approve the amendment as recommended by the county’s Planning and Zoning Commission.
