Hearing set for Kammerzell land re-classification request

A hearing date was set Monday by the Board of County Commissioners for public comment on the application filed by Tom Kammerzell for re-classification of 113.6 acres of property.

The property in question is a mitigation site which was developed along the South Fork of the Palouse River east of Colfax.

The re-classification first came up in September when Kammerzell filed with the county assessor’s office to have the land re-classified from agricultural land to open space.

“It won’t meet the farm and ag current use because it’s no longer farm and ag land,” Commissioner Art Swannack said Sept. 6 when the request first came before the commissioners.

The decision at that time was tabled to allow Prosecutor Denis Tracy time to look over the request.

County Planner Alan Thomson said at the Sept. 6 commission meeting that this is new territory for the county.

“Open space is not mentioned anywhere. There’s nothing in the zoning plan, there’s nothing in the comprehensive plan,” he said.

Kammerzell’s land along the south fork of the Palouse River was used as an off-site wetland/stream mitigation site as part of the Moscow-Pullman Runway Realignment project. That project created 9.4 acres of new riverine wetland, in-stream habitat improvements, installation of more than 19,000 native plantings and permanently protected 9,430 linear feet of the river. With the project complete, a conservation easement – held by Palouse Land Trust – was put on the land to restrict development.

The land was previously used as agriculture land, but now that there is no production on it, Kammerzell is seeking to have it re-classified as open space. This would lower the property taxes on the land.

“It’s just reflecting its actual usage,” he told the Gazette in September.

Kammerzell also agreed in September that the re-classification is new territory for the county, with a project such as the mitigation never having taken place here before.

“It’s new for them. But it meets the criteria very handily. It describes it almost as if you’re looking right at the land,” he said.

The public hearing for the re-classification will be Dec. 19 at 11:15 a.m. in the commissioner’s chambers in the courthouse. Anyone seeking additional information prior to the hearing should contact Thomson at 397-5211.