City to decide on request to gate subdivision

The city of Whitefish is standing firm in its prohibition of gated communities within the resort town following a request from the Grouse Mountain Estates homeowners association to permanently gate its entrances.

On Monday, Oct. 6 the Whitefish City Council will vote on a resolution that strengthens the city’s policy on gated communities by amending the city’s engineering standards and explicitly detailing its prohibition of gates in subdivisions with private roads.

The reconstruction of U.S. 93 West in the Grouse Mountain area prompted the homeowners association to ask the city to install temporary gates to keep motorists from cutting through the subdivision to skirt around the construction zone.

“Last year they got tired of people using them as a bypass,” City Manager Chuck Stearns said.

This year the city permitted temporary gates to be installed during the construction season, but the Grouse Mountain Estates homeowners association contended there’s enough public traffic on those private roads year-round to warrant installing permanent gates, Stearns said.

Even though Grouse Mountain Estates was platted before the city’s prohibition on gated communities, the city doesn’t want to make an exception for Grouse Mountain.

A staff report compiled by City Attorney Mary VanBuskirk notes that during an exhaustive communitywide planning effort to draft the 2007 growth policy, there was a strong desire by city residents to maintain access to all subdivisions for connectivity throughout the city.

“‘No gated communities’ was one of the key themes identified in the May 2006 survey,” VanBuskirk noted. During several outreach sessions, community residents “expressed their sentiments that there be no gated communities in Whitefish.”

Residents perceived gated communities to be “a problem and a threat to Whitefish’s small-town feel and neighborhood character.”

Generally, new subdivisions develop roads and infrastructure that are dedicated to public use, VanBuskirk said. But there are four subdivisions within Whitefish with private roadways that are privately maintained: Grouse Mountain, Suncrest, Lion Mountain and Iron Horse.

“Only Grouse Mountain has private roads that may be closed to vehicular access by the public,” she said, noting a condition of subdivision approval that allows the homeowners association to close its private roads to public vehicular access.

Grouse Mountain Estates does have two internal gates within the development that would not be affected by the city’s proposed resolution, since both are pre-existing permanent gates, VanBuskirk said. The city to date has not permitted the installation or use of permanent gates, however, to prevent public access at the Grouse Mountain entrances.

“Nor has the city permitted any other homeowners association to install gates to prevent public access within city limits,” she said.

The prohibition of gated communities dates back to the late 1990s when Iron Horse was developed. At the city’s insistence, those private roads remain open to the public.