Opinion ID: 2542695
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The First Application

Text: On April 24, 2000, Bawden filed his first application for a Class II permit with Fremont County, seeking to subdivide the eighty-six acre parcel of land into twenty-nine lots. [2] The Fremont County Planning and Zoning Commission (P & Z) considered Bawden's application and preliminary plat at a public hearing in June of that year. P & Z recommended approval of the plat to the Board and issued Bawden a permit. Cowan appealed this decision to the Board. In August 2000, the Board heard Cowan's appeal and later held a closed work session to consider the matter. This meeting, however, was incorrectly noticed as an executive session. Later that same month, the Board approved Bawden's application for a permit, but remanded the matter to P & Z to consider the issue of whether the proposed development site would eliminate historically existing access to public lands. Later, in September 2000, Cowan filed two separate petitions for judicial review of the Board's decision and filed a lawsuit alleging that the Board violated Idaho's Open Meetings Act when it held the incorrectly noticed meeting to consider Bawden's application. On May 21, 2001 the district court determined that the Board had violated the Open Meetings Act. In November 2000, P & Z held a public meeting to address the issue of whether the development would eliminate historically existing access to public lands. Bawden, at that meeting, declared his intention to leave open access to the public. P & Z then found the issue was moot. At that meeting P & Z also considered and recommended approval of Bawden's final plat for phases I and II of the development. Cowan appealed this decision to the Board; however, his appeal was postponed indefinitely and never heard because in May, 2001, Bawden decided to not pursue the first application any further. Meanwhile, in January 2001, the Board held a second meeting and once again approved Bawden's preliminary plat. [3] After the Board issued its written findings of fact, conclusions of law and decision, Cowan filed a second petition for judicial review. In May 2001, the district court issued its decision in Cowan's first petition for judicial review, declaring that the Board's incorrect notice for its August 23, 2000, meeting voided its August 28, 2000 decision and ordered the Board to schedule a new hearing. In the midst of this, Bawden sent letters to the Board and Cowan withdrawing this application. Since then the Board has taken no action on the first application.