(Spirit Lake)– A so-called “watershed evaluation board” that would review requests for zoning changes and make recommendations to the respective planning and zoning commission in Dickinson county that has jurisdiction over the proposed change is dead in the water as far as Spirit Lake is concerned.
The city council voted five-to-nothing Tuesday in favor of a Utility Committee recommendation for the city NOT to get involved in the watershed evaluation board.
Councilman Clyde Ihrke serves on the Utility Committee. He says the board would simply be another layer of bureaucracy that duplicates what planning and zoning commissions already do.
Terry Yarns of the city’s planning and zoning commission agreed, adding the commission will look at adopting some of the principles that would be utilized by the watershed evaluation board–things such as low impact development components, LIDAR, G-I-S, and so on.
