Potential bad news for world famous Zoning-violator Owen Benjamin.
Boundary County, Idaho (home of the Ursa Rio/Beartaria fundraised land) looks to be specifically changing the "enforcement" section of their Zoning laws in a way that could result in criminal charges, heavy fines, and "flagging" of a property's title for someone such as Owen, who has flaunted his zoning violation like a badge of honor and bragged about how he doesn't have to follow the ordinances and only has to pay a small fine.
And let's not forget how one of the major selling points of the fundraising for the land was that there are "no ordinances" if you have 10 acres in Idaho.
On May 4, 2024 Mike Weland published the article Commissioners to consider putting teeth in P&Z enforcement:
BOUNDARY COUNTY has initiated an amendment to its subdivision and zoning codes to repeal current Section 4 “Enforcement” of the Boundary County Zoning and Subdivision Ordinance and adopt a new enforcement section establishing procedures, remedies, and penalties for addressing land use code violations.
The Planning and Zoning Commission at its January 25, 2024, public hearing recommended to the Board of County Commissioners approval of the amendment. On March 11, 2024, the County Commissioners tabled the hearing to allow for further consideration and additional public notice.
Here are the minutes for both meetings:
January 25, 2024 Planning and Zoning hearing
Video:
March 11, 2024 County Commissioners meeting
Video:
One interesting part of the County Commissioners minutes was County Civil Attorney Bill Wilson stressing to commissioners that if they "really do want to effect change, they have to be willing to use the criminal option when necessary."
Some other items of note from the minutes:
They want to change the fines from $100/week to $100/day and want to remove the $1,000 cap:
A $100.00 fine for an infraction for a variety of violations is existing. The code also mentions that a judge could impose higher fines, but the State of Idaho sets the maximum for infractions, so there is a proposal to remove that stay with a misdemeanor only. The current law states that each week is a violation, whereas you can consider each day a separate violation, so the proposal is to go to each day and that had been supported by Attorney Hull. The current violation is forgiven if the person pays up to $1,000.00. In a situation where the person doesn’t want to abate, they have the ability to pay $1,000.00 and never meet the code, but it was felt that was inappropriate. The goal is to meet the codes, so that was removed.
The new rules will apply to Owen Benjamin's existing violations:
Chairman Bertling asked for comments from those uncommitted to the proposal. Ms. Bushnell said for people who have been in violation before and that violation was not resolved, will those people be held to the new penalties or the old penalties. Chairman Bertling said he would say the new penalties. Current ongoing violations would be held to the new penalties. Chairman Bertling said yes.
Owen's violation could result in a "flagging" of his title:
In January, Planning met with the county’s current prosecutor and County Civil Attorney Bill Wilson about a notice to title. This is when the county is unable to get an abatement and then they can record a document that states the issue remains in violation and it can go against a person’s title. The violation would have to be abated in order to remove the notice.
The notice to title could effect the amount he can sell the property for:
Attorney Wilson said he’s found that notice to title is an effective tool, because when people go to sell their house in the future, there is a strong incentive to get that notice to title removed and correct the error, otherwise the property is not nearly as marketable.
The Commissioners ultimate decided they needed more time to think about it:
Commissioner Cossairt said we still have some work to do on this. Commissioner Robertson asked about tabling the hearing for a lengthy amount of time so it would allow a few months to fix some other issues.
On May 6th Mike Weland published another Owen Benjamin article, the same day the proposal was set to be heard again. You can read Mike's article here. Video of the meeting is available below:
