City council goes halfway on U.S. 2 zoning change

The Columbia Falls City Council struggled with a new highway zoning district at its July 15 meeting. In the end, they unanimously agreed to establish the new district but not to apply it to a dozen parcels of land on the south side of U.S. 2 East, as originally intended.

City planning consultant Eric Mulcahy said the proposal arose after several property owners on both sides of U.S. 2 between Oh’s Body Shop and the Teakettle Fishing Access Site tried unsuccessfully to sell their properties but noticed an interest in the properties if they were zoned commercial and not residential.

After the Columbia Falls City-County Planning Board met in a workshop with property owners from the area, Mulcahy began drafting a new limited-business zoning district for the area called CB-3.

Mulcahy said he kept the setbacks of the current CR-3 zone to limit density, adopted sign standards from the Nucleus Avenue business district, set the maximum building size at 4,000 square feet, and chose permitted and conditional uses based on comments made at the workshop.

The planning board reviewed Mulcahy’s draft on June 11 and added two conditional uses — home occupations and micro-breweries. The north side of the highway was withdrawn from consideration for a zone change because of traffic access issues, and three tracts at the west end of the neighborhood were withdrawn by the owner because part of the tracts already had commercial zoning.

The city also received written comments opposed to the zone change. Realtor Bill Dakin said the proposed zone change “will pretty much fly in the face of a 25-year effort” to promote economic development on Nucleus Avenue, and an “adequate supply of underutilized commercial high frontage” already exists. He also suggested that homes in the proposed district may no longer be eligible for government-insured mortgage programs once they were rezoned commercial.

Fellow Realtor Erick Robbins noted that when he was on the planning board during the city’s growth policy update, the board had made a “concerted effort” not to commercially zone the U.S. 2 East neighborhood. The board didn’t want strip development on U.S 2 East and around the Blue Moon Nite Club because they were entrances to the city, he said.

Columbia Falls residents James Betters and Karen Black wrote about the need to protect the aesthetics of the U.S. 2 East area as the “Gateway to Glacier.” Commercial properties “will take away from its natural attraction,” they said.

Adam Nelson, who owns a business on Nucleus Avenue and the house next to the fishing access site, told the council on July 15 why he supported the zone change. He said he loves Columbia Falls and wants to see it prosper and grow, but he’d be lucky to break even selling his home even if it was zoned commercial. He needed to move because of his growing family.

Mayor Don Barnhart, who cast the only dissenting planning board vote on the proposed zone change, said he felt the matter was a “doughnut” issue — a zoning change would be imposed on people who couldn’t vote for city councilors. He said he’d like to see a lot more public comment before he voted.

Several councilors expressed concerns about the potential impact to government-insured mortgage programs, highway traffic safety issues and economic development on Nucleus Avenue.

The zoning text amendment creating the new district was unanimously approved, but the zone change on U.S. 2 East was tabled until the Aug. 5 city council meeting.