Neighborhood plan workshop postponed again by planning board

By ALEX STRICKLAND / Bigfork Eagle

A workshop with the Flathead County Planning Board concerning the revised Bigfork Neighborhood Plan will have to wait a little longer after the board postponed the meeting last Wednesday.

The board voted to adjourn and reschedule the workshop sometime after Flathead County Commissioners make a decision on controversial language in the zoning regulations that have cast doubt on neighborhood plan procedures.

The confusion comes in the wake of a Montana Supreme Court decision that pointed to language in the county zoning regulations that would make neighborhood plans — where they are more stringent than county regulations — regulatory documents.

That decision throws a wrench in the process, since the Flathead County Planning and Zoning Office has instructed plan committees — and the communities they represent — that the plans are non-regulatory documents to be used as guides by which things like zoning could be implemented.

Planning Board members praised the Bigfork plan for the polling and scoping behind it as well as the detail and clarity written into it. But board member Mike Mower jumped in to the debate about regulatory vs. non-regulatory status early and said that until the commissioners make a decision about the zoning language, working on the plan is pointless.

"I think we're wasting our time," he said. "I don't think we need to review this until the commissioners make a decision."

The meeting was adjourned until a to-be-determined date after the commissioners have met on the topic, but not before members of the Bigfork Steering Committee and other citizens present weighed in on the topic.

Bigfork resident Clarice Ryan said that all along the community had been assured the plan was a non-regulatory document. Knowing otherwise could have changed everything, she said.

"I think the reaction from the community would have been different if there was the possibility that it could be regulatory," she said.

Bill Myers, a Bigfork business owner who has expressed opposition to the plan at nearly every public meeting held about it, said the plan — regulatory or not — is flawed, and that it "doesn't fit in with the tradition of the Flathead Valley.

"Quite honestly, I don't want my fate wrapped up in BLUAC," he said.

BSC member Elna Darrow and past member Al Johnson both indicated that since the court has already voiced its decision, work should move forward with the plan considering it a regulatory document.

Eventually, Assistant Director of the Planning Office BJ Grieve — who worked with Bigfork on the revision — jumped in and expressed nothing short of amazement at the situation.

"What I'm looking at here is massive miscommunication," he said. "It's happening to every single person this room. All I can say is, 'Wow.'"

Grieve said that both he and Planning Office Director Jeff Harris were unaware of the contentious language in the zoning regulations and that the office continues to give information that neighborhood plans are not regulatory — a view held in planning theory all over.

The commissioners will likely address the language issue in the next few weeks, but allowing for a 30 day comment period after their hearing, it could be up to eight weeks before the regulatory versus non-regulatory debate is settled, Grieve said.

No closer to a resolution, Bigfork residents and board members left the meeting with bewildered looks and frustration.

Barb Miller, who is on the neighborhood plan committee in Lakeside, attended the meeting the day after a Lakeside Neighborhood Plan Committee meeting saw their plan come under harsh criticism from developers and area land-owners.

"All I know is that I don't want my committee to end up in a room like this," Miller said during the meeting. "People came from al over the valley and we have no idea why we're here."