Council approves slight delay in group of annexations

Whitefish City Council decided it wants to give a few property owners a bit of a tax break before their properties are brought into the city.

Council voted to move a final decision until its Dec. 5 meeting on annexing 44 properties scattered around the city so a resolution on the matter could be written to include a delay in annexation. Council said it would like those properties to not become part of the city until January 2017 and thus delay the resulting increase in property taxes until November 2018 for those land owners.

Property owners in the areas considered for annexation will typically face between a 16 and 28 percent increase in their tax bill as a result of annexation, according to the city.

Some councilors suggested the delay to “soften the impact.”

“We do look at the impacts,” said Councilor Frank Sweeney. “Our goal is not revenue — there are other reasons more important.”

Councilor Andy Feury said the city does take annexation seriously and needs to ensure that property owners who are using city services are paying for them.

“We don’t do it whimsically,” he said. “We do it in the best interest of the community.”

Feury, while he supported the annexation, was the only councilor to vote against the delay.

Many of the properties slated for annexation are located on Ramsey Avenue. The city is using the wholly surrounded method of annexation, which under state law allows the city to annex properties using the method without property owners having the right to protest when access to the properties can only be gained by crossing through the city.

Fourteen of the properties are located along Ramsey Avenue. The other properties are spread throughout the city on Jennings Avenue, Good Avenue, Tideway Drive, Baker Avenue, O’Brien Avenue, Pheasant Run, U.S. Highway 93, Colorado Avenue, Shiloh Avenue, Monegan Road, Whitefish Lookout Road, Ridge Crest Drive and a few properties located between Park Avenue and Ashar Avenue.

All of the properties being considered in total make up just under 83 acres of land.

City Manager Chuck Stearns did caution council that delaying annexation would cause the city to provide services beyond what they are already using to those areas without collecting taxes.

“They do receive a lot of city services on a daily basis [now],” he said. “We are just asking them to now pay for those services.”

During public comment, Don Kaltschmidt said he disagrees that his property on the west side of U.S. Highway 93 South across from the Don “K” automobile dealership is wholly surrounded by the city limits. Both his and his neighbor’s property border county land to the west, he noted.

He said both of the properties will eventually become part of the city as they develop, but he shouldn’t be forced to pay a $5,000 increase in taxes on largely vacant land.

“The highest and best use of the property is to come into the city because it doesn’t make sense to develop those properties in the county,” he said. “I implore you to work with your friends and neighbors on this.”

One property owner did thank the city for annexing the properties.

Angel Dominguez, who owns property in the city on Ramsey Avenue, listed a number of concerns she’s had with neighboring homes including one that has a “raw sewer smell” coming from it and another where a camper trailer was parked too close to her home for months. She said Flathead County has been unresponsive to complaints about the issue, but she feels the city would take care of it.

“You do a great job in your vision of making Whitefish a great place to live,” she said. “All I ask is that you bring Ramsey Avenue with you.”

City Council in 2014 set a priority list for properties to be considered for annexation. The city in July annexed 25 properties on West Lakeshore Drive that were second on the list and third was the areas around Ramsey Avenue along with the other wholly surrounded parcels of land scattered throughout the city.

Properties on Houston Drive remain at the top on the city’s priority list, but that annexation has been held up by litigation. Property owners in the Houston Lakeshore Tract and Stocking Addition have filed an appeal with the Montana Supreme Court claiming that a Flathead District Court erred in its decision in favor of the city saying it can annex the properties by bundling eight separate tracts using the wholly surrounded method of annexation.