HomeMy Public PortalAbout2022.01.13 Gallipoli Letter (2)Communities in Valley County are in crisis. We must
act now to change the destructive trend we are wit-
nessing. Seasonal workers are living in cars because we
lack affordable housing. Restaurants and other busi-
nesses are forced to close several days a week because
they cannot hire enough employees. Up to 25% of
emergency calls face wait times. In an interview with
the Star-News, “McCall Police “Deputy Chief Travis
Smith said, “We’re staffed to take care of 3,500 peo-
ple, not 30,000 each weekend.” The recent nationwide
migration trends are adding to the number of people
that Valley counties first responders are capable of
handling, creating a threat to the safety and welfare of
residents and visitors.
A Building Moratorium Proposal for Valley County
The unprecedented growth of vacation homes, used
as short-term rentals, places stress on city water
use. This June, “McCall’s” water treatment plant
set a record for water consumption. Alternate-day
water restrictions were put into place in many
communities, but enforcement was absent. An
ongoing study is being conducted for a toxic algae
bloom found on the North Shore of Payette Lake.
Refuse collection could not keep up with demand,
and most vacation rental visitors do not recycle,
resulting in recyclables in the landfill.
We need new studies on how leaching landfills,
new wells, and new septic systems impact the
watersheds of Valley County.
The City of McCall is aware of a problem that is
an imminent peril to the public health, safety, or
welfare of visitors renting the homes and neigh-
borhood residents where large rentals are present.
Planning Manager Michelle Groenevelt referred
to large rentals,” They’re essentially functioning as
small hotels in our neighborhoods.” But the large
rentals do not meet fire codes for small hotels.
More visitors to the county also impact wildlife and
wildlife corridors from increased use of motorized
vehicles in all seasons and the increase of all rec-
reationists who enjoy the beauty of Valley County.
Naturalist Says Outdoor Recreation Can Have
Huge Impacts On Wildlife (mountainjournal.org)
The natural world is far more complex than we
once thought. Professor of forest ecology Suzanne
Simard writes in her new book, Finding the Moth-
er Tree, “Ecosystems are similar to human societies
— they’re built on relationships. The stronger those
are, the more resilient the system. Our success in
coevolution — our success as a productive society
— is only as good as the strength of the bonds with
other individuals and species.
As an avid fly-fisherman, in less than four years I
have witnessed the increased warming of the North
Fork of the Payette River from drought conditions
and inconsistent, cold-water releases from Payette
Lake. Temperatures exceeding 70 degrees kill
Trout, Salmon, Steelhead, and our native Whitefish.
This year I witnessed many fish belly up in the river
and other creeks. High mountain lakes are lower
and warmer than I have ever witnessed. And if
these, as some would say, are just outlier years, then
they are becoming more frequent and consecutive.
Increased development will only add to the existing
issues for our already threatened waters.
It makes me wonder if I will have the opportunity
to lead my grandchildren by their hands to my
favorite fishing holes to fish for Trout or Whitefish
in future years. How quickly our natural world can
be destroyed. The North Fork was a healthy native
fishery fifty years ago. Idaho Fish and Game needs
to stock hatchery fish because of the loss of our
native fish. A healthy fishery supports waterfowl
and hundreds of other species, our forests and our
drinking water. And what a tragedy it would be if
our grandchildren never get to see a healthy water-
shed in Valley County.
The continued approval of houses and develop-
ments being built close to the river creates non-
point pollution issues that are difficult to enforce
and mitigate once they are built. Basic Information
about Nonpoint Source (NPS) Pollution | US EPA
A moratorium would give us the time to consid-
er the complexities of the natural world we are
surrounded by and enjoy every day and how more
development would impact our natural world and
the species that coexist with us.
Our county also faces many threats from devel-
opers unfamiliar with a community’s identity,
spirit, history, and housing problems. A company
called Trident recently threatened to develop state
endowment land that surrounds McCall’s Payette
Lake. Even with the unanimous opposition from
the greater McCall community, Trident ignored the
community’s concerns and sent their proposal to
the State Land Board. Trident’s goal was not to pro-
tect or preserve McCall or the ecosystem as they
stated in their proposal; to the contrary, Trident’s
goal was to exploit the land and watershed to make
money for investors, not the goals of preserving or
protecting. Many other developers are submitting
development proposals that do not have the inter-
ests of communities or address the impact their
developments would have on the greater Valley
County ecosystem.
Perpetua Resources and Stallion Gold companies
also threaten the Greater South Fork of the Salmon
River ecosystem with their proposals to mine gold.
Past mining in the Yellow Pine area destroyed the
salmon fishery and land. The impact from new
mining would hurt the ecosystem, watershed,
fishery, and impact recreational use.
If we consider the impact of emissions from a
proposed fleet of trucks and worker and service ve-
hicles for the life of a fifteen year mine the carbon
footprint will be huge, adding to our already smoky
season of wildfires and prescribed burns.
A moratorium would give us time to study the
health impact for children and adults from those
proposed emissions, air quality and what addition-
al sprawl from new housing demand would mean
for the communities of Donnelly, Cascade, McCall,
and the ecosystem that draws so many visitors to
Valley County.
lakes, rivers, and creeks with swimming salmon,
steelhead, and wild cutthroat trout.
Our vast forests provide habitat for many wildlife
species, including bald eagles, calliope humming-
birds, black-backed woodpeckers, and endan-
gered species such as the grizzly bear, gray wolf,
woodland caribou, and the North American lynx.
Visitors come to Valley County for every season
to enjoy everything the natural world has to offer.
Many people have retired here, and many more
would love to live and work here, presenting us
with a dilemma of growing in a thoughtful way that
protects and preserves what we all love and would
like to pass on to future generations.
Many towns and cities in Colorado (Breckenridge,
Aspen, Crested Butte) are implementing solutions
to solve the same issues mentioned. And many
more western towns and cities, Bozeman, Mt,
Jackson, WY, have failed to address their issues,
forcing people that want to live in these places to
leave because they can’t find housing or make a
living wage. Valley County is fortunate that we are
not Aspen, Breckenridge, Bozeman, Jackson, or
any other western towns and cities that were not
proactive on the issues they faced.
Solutions to consider:
• A plan must include solutions so growth im-pacts will not destroy communities, ecosystems, wildlife, and watersheds.
• We need input from scientists, ecologists,
hydrologists, and wildlife experts, and Native
communities. They need to be included in any
growth plan conversation. We can draw experts
from our county. A moratorium should not be implemented until many of the above are in place. Hailey adds ‘green’ government positions | Hailey | mtexpress.com Native Knowledge: What Ecologists Are Learning from Indigenous People - Yale E360
• An Affordable housing plan should be a prior-
ity. Collaboration between employers, state and
local government, and the private sector can be
explored.
• Increased taxes can be considered because of the significant impact of vacation rental home-owners, with the revenue going into affordable housing funds.
• We must follow the lead of other resort areas.
Other Colorado resort towns cracking down on
STRs | News | aspendailynews.com
• A higher tax on high-dollar real estate trans-actions can be considered and used to fund affordable housing.
• Current laws’ limits and caps need to be re-ex-amined based on the latest science and impact
on infrastructure, water, sewer, septic, wells, and
ecosystem realities.
• Existing P&Z laws need to change to address
the issues we face as a county, state, and nation
for the 21st century.
• Limit development in the forest expanse to re-duce wildfire danger and watershed destruction. The rapid growth of the U.S. wildland-urban interface raises wildfire risk | PNAS
A moratorium will not impact current projects or
permits, maintenance, remodeling, or municipal
projects. Construction companies and businesses
related to the construction industry would not be
affected because they have backlogs months and
years out. And supply chain issues may be with us
for another year. A new growth model would help
prevent boom and bust cycles. U.S. Housing Starts
Fall, Driven by Multifamily Slowdown - Bloomberg
What we all have in common is our love of the
place we live. We are steps from wildness, moun-
tains, rivers, forests, lakes and, wildlife, and fish
(358 species, not including insects) at our door-
steps. fseprd685355.pdf (usda.gov)
Approval of zoning and building permits is an indi-
vidual case-by-case process that does not account
for the impact and hidden costs on people in our
communities or the natural world that surrounds
us. A moratorium would give all the people who
live here a voice in the future of how we grow. With
insight from scientists, knowledge from native
communities, and political leadership, we can
create a growth model for the 21st century.
Over and over, we are getting scientific wake-up
calls about the damage from uncontrolled growth
but continue to embrace traditional growth mod-
els. The failure to act now will give us a continuous
corridor of sprawl from Cascade to McCall. The
county will need roads to accommodate more
traffic. More traffic will lead to more accidents,
commuter traffic, and air quality issues.
Public land will be less accessible. New develop-
ment will advance into our forest expanse, where
wildfires the size of recent California fires will be
more common here.
Housing developments will need more services
to meet basic needs resulting in more shopping
centers and commercial businesses that will fill
the land where we now see livestock and crops.
In twenty years, populations will triple (McCall
10,000, Cascade 3500, and Donnelly 1000) based
on present growth trend charts. The vacation rental
growth in all the communities will grow from
30,000 to 100,000 visitors a month in the McCall
area. Emergency services response times and
budgets will not be adequate for the population
increase.
Love is one of the most beautiful characteristics
we have in our human nature. I hope we use that
love to save this unique place we live to pass on
to future generations and not cave in to the term
“growth is inevitable,” but instead, choose to act
and defy the “inevitable trends” that will ruin this
place we love. We have a moral duty to hand Valley
County over to our children and grandchildren so
we may walk with them in places that will be the
same for them as we enjoy now.
To change direction, Valley County
Commissioners need to implement
a moratorium on building in Valley
County.
Under the Local and Land Use Planning Act
(LUPA), Idaho Code 67-6523, a local government
has authority to issue a temporary moratorium for
up to 182 days if the governing board finds that
an imminent peril to the public health, safety, or
welfare requires the adoption of such an ordinance.
The purpose of a moratorium is so that a locality
can have the time to study the potential effects of
types of development and establish new, perma-
nent regulations of that use.
I believe that significant and unprecedented exter-
nal actions in Valley County are already creating
imminent peril to the public health, safety, and
welfare of Valley County residents. These actions
include:
• The lack of affordable housing continues to grow,
increasing inequality in many of Valley County’s
communities. We cannot ignore or deny the data
on this growing problem. 7 statistics that illuminate
the housing crisis - NewsBreak
• Unprecedented growth exacerbated by the “zoom
boom,” or people moving to more rural areas due
to COVID and the catastrophic events of wildfires,
drought, and climate change. One influential 2018
study, published in The Journal of the Associa-
tion of Environmental and Resource Economists,
suggests that one in 12 Americans in the country’s
Southern half will move toward California, the
Mountain West, or the Northwest over the next
45 years of climate influences alone. How Climate
Migration Will Reshape America | Pulitzer Center
• Water requirements for additional population
demands will not be adequate without a plan based
on current migration trends.
• Water and septic demands need to be considered
because they are connected to the aquifers and the
larger watershed.
https://www.azcentral.com/in-depth/news/local/
arizona-environment/2019/12/05/unregulated-pump-
ing-arizona-groundwater-dry-wells/2425078001/?utm_
campaign=coschedule&utm_source=face-
book_page&utm_medium=American%20
Rivers&utm_content=Megafarms%20and%20deeper%20
wells%20are%20draining%20the%20water%20be-
neath%20rural%20Arizona%20%E2%80%93%20quiet-
ly,%20irreversibly
• The significant uptick in real estate purchases as
second homes being used for short-term rentals
creates housing prices to inflate beyond the wages
of workers that live here. ://www.idahostates-
man.com/news/local/envirohttpsnment/arti-
cle254694732.html
• “Valley County has approximately 78% second
home ownership and 772 short-term rentals; the
effect on neighborhoods is considerable;”
• Lack of enforcement of safety, fire, and building
codes for vacation rentals places visitors and resi-
dents in danger. ORD-20-10.pdf (valley.id.us)
• A labor shortage is hurting local businesses
because people who want to work cannot find
housing.
• Water treatment and sewer plant issues exceed
the population’s capacity in communities that are
serviced by treatment and sewer facilities. Toxic
Algae issues in Payette Lake are now present in our
drinking water.
• The development and growth of an expanding
population are creating recreational stress on our
ecosystem, wildlife corridors, and watersheds. Nat-
uralist Says Outdoor Recreation Can Have Huge
Impacts On Wildlife (mountainjournal.org)
• Traditional sprawl in the county is not a solution
to growth issues. Examples of other communities
in the West are confronting those issues. Crested
Butte Inches Closer Towards Housing Crisis Be-
cause “Zoom Boom” (unofficialnetworks.com)
• Sprawl would create fire risk and additional
pressure on wildlife corridors and the greater
ecosystem. No, Human Development Does Not
“Create” Wildlife Corridors (mountainjournal.org)
Managing Wildfire Risk and New Development |
SPUR
• Emissions from the growth of thousands of
additional vehicles, recreational vehicles and our
smoky summers and prescribed burns require a
study of air quality for Valley county and what the
health effects will be for children and adults that
live here full time.
• Emergency services response times are increasing
because of additional development and more peo-
ple than Departments were designed for, threaten-
ing the health and safety of residents and visitors.
A moratorium would give Valley County and the
public the time to collaborate and find solutions
to the issues we are now facing. Valley County is
unique. We live and work in a beautiful place sur-
rounded by mountains, ancient forests, mountain
If you support a moratorium, I urge you to share this,
offer your ideas and make your voice heard to all
County and City officials that you agree there is an ur-
gency to act and implement a building moratorium.
—David J Gallipoli McCall, ID