Community Highlights

Sandpoint is designated as a Silver-level community due to its excellent walking mode share, longstanding community and political support for walkability, land use policies, and street design standards. Community highlights include:

• Robust efforts to engage members of the public. Sandpoint has had a citizen Pedestrian Advisory Committee for more than 10 years! For the development of the Downtown Streets Plan and Design Guide, the city held 35 hours of public meetings, constructed an interactive model of a typical street right-of-way, had over 500 face-to-face conversations with citizens, conducted over 40 hours of interviews, facilitated over 12 hours of Steering Group and Technical Advisory meetings, and hosted a project website with an interactive clearinghouse.
• A complete streets policy and connectivity policy (see 10-1-6.5) that show that Sandpoint is truly prioritizing pedestrian considerations in every project.
• An ADA transition plan with complete inventory of sidewalks and curb ramps.
• The Community Trail, which provides a nice off-road connection through the middle of Sandpoint. Plus, Sandpoint has miles of recreational trails along Lake Pend Oreille!
• Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) are allowed in all single-family residential districts. ADUs can be a maximum of 650 square feet or 90% of the primary dwelling unit, whichever is less.
• Sandpoint has prioritized pedestrian safety and comfort at crossings by installing bulb-outs through much of the downtown core, thermoplastic crosswalk markings at high-volume intersections, and RRFBs at eight different locations!