Residents speak out against annexation
Even before City Council passed a resolution signaling its intent to consider annexing a scattering of properties across the city, some of those property owners last week told Council they don’t want to join the city.
Forty-four properties are being considered, with many of those located on Ramsey Avenue, for annexation under the wholly surrounded method of annexation. Under state law, the city can 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.
Don Kaltschmidt said he disagrees that his property on the west side of Highway 93 S 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.
“Both of those properties will come into the city eventually, but now is not the right time,” he said. “I look forward to working with the city when that time does come.”
John Wallace, who owns property on Ramsey Avenue, said he disagrees that a property should be annexed because it’s surrounded by city property.
“There’s a lot of negative things that come with being annexed into the city,” he said. “I can’t do open burning and I can’t build on the property the way I want.”
Rita Hanson, who lives on Ramsey Avenue, asked council to wait to annex her property until a decision is made in a lawsuit before the state Supreme Court on whether Whitefish can annex property on Houston Drive using the wholly surrounded method.
“This creates a hardship for us as far as the development going on around us,” she said. “We have been doing our own trash and now we will be mandated for refuse pick-up. There will be an increase in taxes for us and that will cause a problem.”
City Council Oct. 3 unanimously passed a resolution of intent to considering annexing the properties.
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, 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 make up just under 83 acres of land.
Council will hold a public hearing on the annexation on Nov. 21 and council will vote on whether or not to bring the properties into the city.
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.
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.