Outgoing planning chief reflects

A few more dollars might make it easier for Kootenai County to find a new planning director, one of the most high-profile jobs in an area that’s growing by thousands of residents each year.

That’s the opinion of outgoing Planning Director Rand Wichman, who ended his 15-year career with the county Friday. He was named director in 2001.

Overall, Wichman thinks the planning and building department is running smoothly, with a near full staff, short waits for permits and the start of a rewrite for the county’s comprehensive plan, which is the blueprint for growth.

“I’m pretty proud of the shape I’m leaving the department in,” said Wichman, who will open a private land-use consulting business in July.

Yet he has some regrets, mainly not protecting the Rathdrum Prairie by setting aside some large tracts of open space.

“That’s a pretty significant missed opportunity,” Wichman said.

He also thinks the county should have updated its zoning laws, which are 28 years old and often allow for large-scale developments, such as luxury golf course communities, in some of the county’s most rural areas, including around Lake Coeur d’Alene.

“Until a couple years ago there were still provisions for outdoor movie theaters,” Wichman said. “Some people … probably don’t even know what those are.”

Once the county completes the rewrite of its comprehensive plan, it will likely overhaul the zoning laws.

It’s certain that whoever gets the job will have lots to juggle in perhaps the fastest growing county in Idaho, a county where 2,250 new houses were built in 2005. It’s unknown how the focus on the department might change with a new director. Adding to the mix is the fact that Kootenai County will get two new commissioners in January, after voters booted commission Chairman Gus Johnson and Commissioner Katie Brodie from office in the May Republican primary.

Wichman said one thing is for sure: Growth and development are foremost on residents’ minds. He predicts the boom will last several more years but eventually will slow as there become fewer places to build.

“Someday we are going to run out of dirt,” Wichman said.

The fast pace of growth has gobbled up most of the easiest places to develop in Kootenai County, such as the prairie. That leaves the most sensitive areas: hillsides, wetlands and land farthest from towns.

These are challenges the new director will juggle.

“The face of the community is changing,” Wichman said. “This is not the laid-back, easy-going community it once was. The public has become to some degree fed up and frustrated. They’re much more demanding.”

So far, the County Commission has interviewed several candidates to take over Wichman’s job of overseeing 31 employees and acting as the face of many controversial land-use decisions. But the advertised salary of up to $65,000 isn’t attracting the talent needed, Wichman said. He thinks that’s what the county should pay senior planners, who now make about $45,000 a year. Wichman earned about $67,000 a year.

“It’s going to be hard until they get a little more serious about paying quality people,” he said.

Commissioner Rick Currie, the only one who will remain on the board in January, said it’s too early to speculate whether the commission will have problems hiring a new director.

“We know we need a director and we need a good one,” Currie said.

He said the new director needs a working knowledge of planning along with good communication skills because the job requires constant contact with the public.

Wichman possessed both those traits, Currie said. “He’s excellent, absolutely excellent.”

Wichman hasn’t settled on a name for his new, one-man consulting business, but he does have office space on east Sherman Avenue. He looks forward to stepping out of the spotlight, a place he willingly put himself. He admits the department could have had a lower profile.

“I think the public has a stake in what this community is going to be,” Wichman said. “It’s important that the community understand what’s going on.”

He began working for the county in 1991 as a 25-year-old recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Back then, Kootenai County was a rural area that resembled today’s Boundary or Benewah counties, he said. In 1990, Kootenai County did about 3,000 building inspections a year. Now it handles four times as many.

Initially hired as building permit technician, Wichman worked his way to director in 2001.

He turned 40 in May and is ready for a change. The new career will mean he likely will pitch development proposals, such as housing subdivisions, to his former bosses, the Kootenai County Commission. His decision also dispels speculation that he would join Gozzer Ranch, the luxury private golf community near Arrow Point where his wife works.

Wichman took heat when his wife started working for the company last year, but the commissioners maintained there was no conflict because the commission, not Wichman, had final say on all development and land-use decisions.

A four-person team of supervisors will manage the planning and building department until a new director is hired.