HAMILTON - Doug Soren has every reason to be opposed to a proposal to create streamside setbacks in Ravalli County.
Soren owns a narrow strip of land alongside Skalkaho Creek just outside of Hamilton.
And when he looks close, he can see its foundation starting to crack and its floors beginning to buckle. Skalkaho Creek is slowly undermining the house.
“The house I have is in danger of falling right in the creek,” he said.
Soren thinks about tearing it down and building somewhere else on his property. Proposed new streamside setback rules being pondered by the county might make that nearly impossible.
“Considering all that, you'd think I'd be against it,” he said. “You'd be wrong. ... Skalkaho Creek is in trouble. The 800 feet of it I own is in trouble.”
“There are so many reasons why we shouldn't be able to build wherever we want,” he said. “I hope you pass this.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Soren was one of several who asked the Ravalli County commissioners to consider passing an interim measure to enact streamside setbacks in a meeting so full that the crowd spilled out into the hallway.
The meeting was initially intended to be an opportunity for the committee tasked to develop a countywide streamside setback ordinance to give the commission an update, but people on both sides of the issue jumped at the opportunity to share their opinions.
Chris Daniel offered the commission a handful of surveys that he sent out to residents living alongside rivers and streams.
He thought the idea of requiring building setbacks along waterways impinged on people's personal rights and he wanted to know what his neighbors thought.
Of the 500 surveys he mailed out, Daniel said 165 folks sent them back. Six were in favor of streamside setbacks and 159 opposed them.
Most of those folks agreed with him about property rights and many worried their property would be worth less without the ability to develop it under the current laws and regulations, Daniel said.
“Why do we need these regulations on top of what we already have?” he asked. “Why do we need more bureaucracy? Can taxpayers in this county afford it?”
For the Ravalli County Commission, the meeting was likely just a taste of what's to come.
The Ravalli County Streamside Setback Committee is on schedule to complete its recommendation for an ordinance by its July 2008 deadline. After that's completed, the commission will begin working through a very public process to determine how streamside setbacks might be rolled into a larger countywide zoning effort now under way.
The commission currently isn't considering an interim measure.
Several of the commissioners and members of the public applauded the efforts accomplished so far by the streamside setback committee.
“Great work has been done up to this point,” said Commissioner Jim Rokosch. “There's just been a really great effort to bring in a lot of information and different perspectives.”
Rokosch said he's heard people question the need for setbacks. People wonder why floodplain regulations and the state's 310 law aren't enough, he said.
There's a gap between those two regulatory laws, Rokosch said.
The 310 law focuses on the stream's active channel and anything beyond the high water mark isn't considered. Floodplain regulations are based on the elevation of the landscape and don't always offer streamside protection.
“There are areas where floodplain regulations and 310 regulations don't really address the situation,” he said. “You can't address protection of riparian or the channel migration concerns we have with just those regulations.”
The county may face liability issues when making decisions on where development could occur that puts people in harm's way, Rokosch said.
Commissioner Alan Thompson said he appreciated the streamside setback committee's willingness to revise their proposal based on information people have offered, especially in regards to agriculture, irrigation and motorized use along waterways.
“I do appreciate the committee's willingness to take suggestions ... to come up with a set of regulations that we all can live with,” Thompson said.
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