City leaders to explain the development process at upcoming town hall

POCATELLO – For those who wish to gain a better understanding of how development happens in the Gate City, they’ll have a chance this week.

At 6 p.m. on Thursday, the City of Pocatello will hold a town hall meeting, with information presented on the process of city planning at the start of the meeting. Those who wish to speak after this presentation are encouraged to sign up prior to the start of the meeting, beginning at 5:30, according to a city news release.

“(Planning and development) is something (where) there’s a lot of people who don’t quite understand how it all works,” said Planning & Development Director Brent McLane.

While the city has been holding town hall meetings for a number of years, the idea to do one on this topic came about last month from Mayor Mark Dahlquist. Because the mayor won’t be able to attend this town hall due to prior commitments, Council President Corey Mangum will direct the meeting.

The town hall will start with a presentation by McLane, which he estimates will last for around 15 to 20 minutes, that will go into a number of subjects that will help attendees better understand the functions of the planning department. These subjects will include the public comment process, what can be regulated by the city versus what is regulated by the state and the approval process developers go through on new developments.

While learning more about the approval process benefits developers, McLane also feels that it benefits members of the general public.

“Obviously it would be beneficial to developers or people who are looking to do improvements on their property, but also it’s a benefit to just any regular citizen so they can understand the steps that those different property owners have to go through … to get approval,” McLane said.

Understanding this also helps the public better understand when and where they can provide input.

“All too often people think, ‘I don’t want this development to go in next to my property,’ and it’s at a point where all those decisions have actually been made already. By the time they understand what’s happening, it’s beyond that point,” McLane said.

And developers who better understand the approval process are less likely to run into hurdles that slow down their development.

McLane plans to talk about how the city holds a weekly site plan review meeting, “where we allow developers to come to the city and provide an idea of what they would like to develop.”

McLane said these meetings are held every Tuesday at 1:30 in a city hall conference room. People who want to attend can go to city hall and call the planning department from the lobby to join the meeting. They ask that beforehand, people email the department at EMAIL with information about what they want to talk about, in order to give department heads some time to prepare.

At these meetings, McLane said, “the different city departments can then give high level feedback to what kinds of things they would be looking for in relation to that project.”