The McCall City Council and the Valley County Board of Commissioners jointly heard public testimony last week on McCall's comprehensive land-use plan update.
The bodies did not approve the plan at the meeting held last Thursday at Idaho First Bank.
The city council may approve the revised plan at its meeting tonight starting at 6 p.m. at McCall City Hall.
County commissioners have tentatively scheduled the adoption of the revised plan at its Jan. 28 meeting at 11 a.m.
Five people spoke at the public hearing.
The plan calls for a growth rate of 3.5 percent and seeks to manage a build-out population up to 35,000. The rate is consistent with the city's recent wastewater treatment plant plan.
Community Voice spokesperson Curt Mack objected to the plan's goal of an annual population growth rate of 3.5 percent.
Mack argued that the city's population did not grow at that rate even during intensive development in 2004 and 2005.
"There's a large segment of the population that feels that the problem isn't to encourage additional growth, but to manage the growth we have now," Mack said.
"The intent of the community was to slow the growth rate down," he said. "I'm not sure that McCall even in our heyday of 2004 and 2005 grew by 3.5 percent population growth."
Jim Fronk of Secesh Engineering read a letter from the Bezates family, which owns more than 700 acres west of McCall.
"The family has not been involved in the past planning of the property and has received no notice relative to the planning effort and have not waived any rights related to the inadequate notice," said Fronk reading from the letter.
The letter went on to say the family would continue to work with city staff on future development plans for the property.
Brian O'Morrow read a letter from Judd and Diane DeBoer asking the city to remove an alternate highway route from their property located south of McCall.
"This general location for a highway bypass of McCall was considered by the Idaho Transportation Department for over 20 years until the ITD board in 2004 decided to abandon any further study of the route," O'Morrow said.
"The city's goals of relieving congestion on Idaho 55 are good goals that we support," the letter said.
"The city would be more productive in focusing their efforts on other ways to affect change rather than simply sticking with the 20-year-old idea that has already been rejected by ITD," the letter said.
Others testifying at the hearing had concerns with the McCall Municipal Airport and planning goals that might diminish land values.
"The airport is going to be a big issue whether we want it to or not," Mack said. "Before we think about expanding the airport we need to be looking at assessing and looking at community impacts to local residents."
The plan contains a future land-use planning map, which is not a zoning map.
The map shows an extension of the city's area of impact south to Johnson Lane.
In order for any change to the city's area of impact both the city council and the county commissioners would have to negotiate the change through a process outlined by Idaho law.
The updated plan calls for the town's most urban character to be located in the downtown. Urban character would also be reflected along Third Street, also known as Idaho 55.
Neighborhood mixed-use centers, such as the Lardo neighborhood, would also have an urban flavor. As the land uses move outward beyond the city limits, the character would transition to rural settings.
The plan focuses on a Third Street streets cape that includes sidewalks, curbs and gutters.
In order to alleviate congestion in the downtown area, a number of proposals are suggested in the plan.
A sidewalk plan for downtown McCall and Third Street is one of the proposals.
