A decision on a project to add school district employee housing in McCall was punted to a future McCall Planning and Zoning Commission meeting – with questions remaining about how some existing power lines should be handled.
Eagle-based The Land Group Inc., is working on a project that would add McCall-Donnelly School District housing near Stibnite Street and N. Mission Street in McCall. There would be a total of 35 units, with 32 of them split across four multifamily buildings, and the remaining three would be in single-family “cottage-type units.”
Last week, phase one of the project plan was presented to the commission. This phase encompasses one of the multifamily buildings, parking, and asphalt entry along with mainline utility work.
“This site plan has shifted. We feel it aligns well with the development agreement language, but enables the school district to get the most units at the best cost-effective price point, which is the multifamily building providing eight units, and we’re anticipating to some degree that the single professional need is going to be larger than the single-family need,” Kerstin Dettrich with the Land Group said. “It’s not to say that there couldn’t be more cottages in the future.”
Power line problems
McCall city staff put in a condition of approval on the project, asking that the existing power lines along Mission Street be buried. City Planner Brian Parker says that the existing overhead power adds wildfire risk and burying the lines is required by code.
“Anytime there’s overhead power there’s a risk that it’s going to snap and fall and catch fire and there are people moving in here that we want to ensure are safe and taken care of,” Parker said. “These are all things that can be mitigated and dealt with. We just haven’t seen that we haven’t had enough time to review if those can be mitigated without undergrounding power lines, and we also don’t know how much undergrounding is going to cost.”
Dettrich challenged Parker by saying code only requires power lines to be buried when a project is adding new power lines – not existing power lines.
During the meeting, The Land Group called this condition a “huge problem.” Dettrich said that just the design portion of underground power is going to add major costs to the project, as 430 feet of power lines are requested to be buried. Idaho Power would determine the costs of taking the power lines off of poles and putting them underground.
Dettrich pointed out that other entities nearby have not been required to bury power lines.
“First of all, Mission Street in total has overhead power… to impose underground power on an affordable housing project of a public entity where every other governmental agency on the street or civic agency also has overhead power creates a huge problem for this project,” Dettrich said. “Just to list it off; The Forest Service property is there. We all know it. The high school property is there. We all know it. Our Savior Lutheran Church is down the street. Camp Pinewood is down the street. Wildwoods Condominiums is on the street. The McCall cemetery is on the street. None of these properties have underground power.”
She also asked the commission why this condition should stop a much-needed project from moving forward.
“Underground power should not be contingent on phase one of this project, defer it. Negotiate what needs to happen. Find out the costs for providing the underground power. Then let’s go from there,” Dettrich said.
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She said she feels passionate about the issue – and the extra cost.
“Our daycare workers are suffering we’re having a hard time employing teachers and amongst other essential staff in this community, we’re talking about firefighters and EMTs,” Dettrich said. “This kind of project is something where we can work together to find a solution.”
After some debate, the commission decided to delay the project while a solution was worked on.
“Overall for the rest of the project, I think looks good. Definitely needed,” Commission Chair Robert Lyons said. “it’s just that one item…. I think the design looks good for the buildings…I think everything else about it looks good if we can get an agreement on the power.”
The motion was made to move the McCall-Donnelly School District housing application to the May 2 meeting to give the staff and applicant time to discuss the power lines.
