We can’t blame Lauren Bisbee of Sandpoint’s Tomlinson Black office for groaning when she heard Outside Magazine had listed the Bonner County seat among its “Dream Towns.”

Once, waterfront towns, such as Sandpoint and Coeur d’Alene, crowed when they received favorable mention in a national publication. But residents of booming North Idaho communities are realizing that discovery is a mixed blessing. On one hand, boom towns have amenities that other comparable communities often don’t have, such as nice libraries, schools and major retail stores. On the other, they have to endure traffic congestion, crowded schools and soaring real estate prices.

Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls saw the boom coming in time to extend sewer lines, upgrade infrastructure, institute impact fees and expand their park systems. In spite of all those progressive moves, the sister cities are still struggling to keep up with growth. In Post Falls, city officials are searching for innovative ways to guide growth while conserving water, reducing the amount of treated wastewater dumped into the Spokane River and preserving the Rathdrum Prairie and aquifer below. Coeur d’Alene is trying to find money to rebuild its library, create an education corridor and revitalize downtown. Now, it’s Sandpoint’s turn.

Unfortunately, the laid-back city of loggers, ex-hippies, artists and professionals doesn’t have much time to make the right choices. In the last two years alone, the median list price for waterfront property in Bonner County has almost doubled from $295,000 to $500,000. Without aggressive planning and a clear vision for what aspects of small-town life should be preserved, residents of the greater Sandpoint area could lose to the things that make their eclectic community attractive and unique.

Sandpoint and Bonner County don’t have to look far to find direction on how to handle their rapid growth. Boom town models are all around. In stories Sunday, Spokesman-Review staff writers Becky Kramer and James Hagengruber told who and what are spurring the growth in Sandpoint and Bonner County, and reported how other Northwest towns are confronting boom times, including Blaine County, Idaho, Whitefish and Bozeman, Mont., and Bend, Ore. In planning for growth, the reporters found, the key is to allow residents – not developers – to decide what they want their town to be.

It wasn’t that long ago that elected officials in Bonner County considered “planning” a dirty word. In January 1997, ultraconservative Republican Bud Mueller and his running mate, the late Larry Allen, took over the county commission. Within days, the pair teamed up to fire the entire building department, triggering bureaucratic chaos, a costly lawsuit and higher county insurance rates.

Partly as a result, the Southern Poverty Law Center flagged Bonner County as a hot-bed of far-right extremism.

Since then, the picturesque county of mountains and waterways has drifted back toward respectability. It has much to offer residents and newcomers, if it can learn from the mistakes of other boom areas and has the courage to make tough decisions in managing growth.