County taking stock of the 'doughnut'

Office will need more staff to finish all the work needed to take over from city

By RICHARD HANNERS/Whitefish Pilot

If plans go according to schedule, the Flathead County Planning and Zoning Office could take over development requests within Whitefish's "doughnut" area by Sept. 1.

County planning director Jeff Harris told the Pilot the county growth policy and the resolution to adopt it must be amended before the county takes charge over development requests in the area. Both refer to the interlocal agreement that created Whitefish's two-mile planning and zoning jurisdiction.

Harris said the county planning board will likely conduct a public hearing on the matter on July 16, and it will go to the commissioners on July 29. After that, there will be a 30-day comment period.

The county planning office gets calls every day from "doughnut" residents with development requests, he said. They are currently directed to the Whitefish planning office.

Harris has drafted a list of items that will need to be addressed if the county takes over jurisdiction of the city's extraterritorial planning jurisdiction — but it won't be easy.

"It's important to note that it is simply not possible for our office to process this work without more staff," he told planning board members in a memo. "It is simply too much work that will be added on to daily calls, subdivisions, zoning issues and the administrative work to get us back to a legally defensible status with these lands."

Harris acknowledged all the work Whitefish planners have done after the city took over planning, zoning and floodplain and subdivision review in the "doughnut" area.

"I remember our office experienced a noticeable drop in work when the interlocal agreement was completed," he said.

Whitefish sued the county after the commissioners voted 2-1 to rescind the interlocal agreement, but Flathead County District Court Judge Katherine Curtis ruled against Whitefish's request for a preliminary injunction on May 1.

Since then, county planners have made plans to take over jurisdiction of the "doughnut" area. But it's not simply a matter of plugging the city's growth policy into the county's, Harris said.

For one thing, the city's growth policy takes a more detailed look at existing and future land uses "right to the ground," he said. But with a geographically diverse area the size of Connecticut, the county's growth policy is more general with "tiered planning activities."

"Instead of a single document, it's a drawer-full of documents," Harris said.

Whitefish's growth policy in the "doughnut" area is more like one of the county's many neighborhood plans, he pointed out. Tiered above them are regional plans that include topics like transportation, water quality and affordable housing, he said.

There are other issues, he noted. The county never rescinded its zoning in the "doughnut" area — Whitefish placed city zoning on top of the underlying county zoning, he said.

On the other hand, some developers have spent millions of dollars seeking approval for planned-unit developments (PUDs). A prime example is Whitefish Mountain Resort, which has its own neighborhood plan on Big Mountain.

Harris said a city ordinance like the Critical Areas Ordinance, which likely precipitated the county's action, cannot be enforced outside the city limits. The county has nothing like the CAO, he said, but county subdivision regulations cover water quality, wildfire, steep slopes and even aesthetics.

Critics of the county's action are quick to point out that the county has stricter standards for critical areas than the city, but the standards are included in proposed setbacks for the county's subdivision regulations. They wouldn't automatically apply to individual lots.

Harris said he agreed with the need to protect gateway corridors, like U.S. Highway 93 south of Highway 40.

"First impressions are important," he said. "We want to create a good lasting impression."

He said the county is considering "corridor guidance" language for its growth policy that would include architectural review, but corridor guidance would likely be voluntary, not mandatory.

The model for corridor planning could come from Columbia Falls, which is concerned about strip development on U.S. Highway 2 in the LaSalle area, he said.

"The county tends to lean to voluntary rules and not be so regulatory," he said. "We don't want to be over controlling."

Harris also said the county has no regulations directing infill development and holding certain lands in reserve, as the city contemplated in its growth policy.

"That's not likely to happen," he said. "When I got here in 2005, there was talk of a moratorium. But there's no appetite for that. Instead, there's interest in more site review."

Harris admitted one shortcoming for county planning has been the need for more study of cumulative impacts of growth in some areas.

"We need a more comprehensive approach to that, but there's no policy on that now," he said. "What the county might do is to provide incentives to direct development, such as offering more lots."

As for the future of the Whitefish City-County Planning Board, Harris said that's up to the commissioners to decide. A joint city-county board could continue to exist, with final decisions going to the commissioners instead of the city council, he said, or the county planning board could take over duties of the current city-county board.