County adopts lakeshore protection regulations

The Flathead County commissioners on Monday unanimously adopted an overhaul of the county’s lakeshore protection regulations.

The update, which took more than a year to wind through the county’s planning process, was prompted by the state Supreme Court decision that ceded planning control of the area around Whitefish to the county. As county zoning was imposed in the Whitefish “doughnut,” Whitefish and Lost Coon lakes were integrated into the updated county regulations.

“Flathead County has ... included probably 90 percent of what Whitefish wants in its regulations,” Commissioner Phil Mitchell said.

The city of Whitefish supported most of the changes to county regulations, although the city lobbied unsuccessfully for language that would exclude docks or other items outside the county’s jurisdiction — below mean low water in Whitefish’s jurisdiction — from counting toward constructed area for county lakeshore properties.

The city of Whitefish will continue to count the total constructed area of all paths, walkways, patios, boat houses, retaining walls and other items in the lakeshore protection zone along with the square footage of docks, according to Whitefish Planning Director David Taylor.

County residents will be able to receive permits from the county Planning Office to construct up to their total constructed area without counting docks, but when they apply to Whitefish for their dock permit, they will be denied because they have used up all their constructed area on land, Taylor said.

“There may be a considerable number of county property owners penalized because they will no longer have the constructed area available for a dock, having used it all up landward legally under county regulations,” Taylor wrote in an earlier letter to the commissioners.

Whitefish planner Bailey Minnich told the commissioners prior to their vote on Monday that the city of Whitefish would like the county to set a time frame for rebuilding a nonconforming use.

“We don’t want someone to tear down [a nonconforming use] and then wait two years” to rebuild, Minnich said. “Lakeshore regulations should be more stringent than zoning.”

The commissioners agreed the time frame imposed by the lakeshore permit should suffice.

Taylor earlier had informed the commissioners the city has not yet received any complaints from dock installers or county residents about the two-permit system. However, he cautioned that “savvy county residents will figure out a loophole end-around to double their allowed constructed area.

“The proposed change to ignore dock constructed area over the lake will add confusion and will solely impact county residents as well as the overall water quality of Whitefish Lake,” Taylor said.

The commissioners acknowledged the two-permit system is cumbersome in requiring Whitefish Lake lakeshore property owners in the doughnut area to get both county and city permits.

Mitchell said he’d like to see some “give and take” between the city and county and find a way to streamline the permit process. He encouraged county Planning Director Mark Mussman and Taylor to work together to “tweak” the process.

One significant change in language requires all decks to be on grade and limited to no more than 200 square feet within the county lakeshore protection zone. Previously decks could be 800 to 1,000 square feet depending on how much lakeshore footage a property owner had.

Other new county standards include limiting the width of a stairway to four feet, and exempting from general setback requirement standards decks, patios, walkways and stairways flush with the adjacent natural grade.