Landowners support U.S. 93 plan, while city raises objections

A handful of landowners told Flathead County commissioners last week they’d like to see a corridor plan and overlay use district approved for U.S. 93 south of Whitefish.

Before the county is a citizen-initiated plan in two parts — one to change the zoning on parcels throughout the 490-acre area south of Whitefish and another to create a new overlay use district for about 1.5 miles of the highway corridor south of the Montana 40 intersection.

Steve Gordon, owner of Bridge Medical Center, said he chose to locate his business outside Whitefish to give it a “country feel.”

“We’re looking to get the zoning corrected for what is in this area,” he said. “The number of vehicle trips that go through, it’s not for housing, it’s for business.”

Sarah Nargi, owner of Whitefish Plastic Surgery, agreed saying “commercial zoning is a lot more appropriate.”

Commissioners voted Thursday to delay a decision on both items until a later date, but did not specify when that might be.

“This commission will take a due amount of time making a decision,” Commissioner Gary Krueger said.

Commissioners made few comments on the proposals other than to ask questions. They did, however, chastise the city of Whitefish saying the municipality is unwilling to consider extending city sewer and water service beyond Montana 40.

City Planning and Building Director Dave Taylor told commissioners that the city’s extension of service plan calls for municipal water and sewer services to stop at Montana 40 and the area is outside its current urban growth boundary.

“It would be irresponsible to create zoning that needs services,” he said. “There are areas that [commercial] infill could occur inside city limits.”

Commissioner Pam Holmquist called it “disturbing” that the city is unwilling to extend city service to the south.

“I have angst about that,” she said. “We need to plan for that. These individuals [property owners] have been stuck for many years.”

“Their goal is to stop growth,” Commissioner Phil Mitchell said. “We’ve got businesses trying to operate.”

“It’s irresponsible to not take up the issue,” Krueger added. “They’re not planning to extend services and allow people to annex into the city. We’ve got to work through these issues the best we can. It’s irresponsible that this didn’t happen 20 years ago.”

The proposal, which won a positive recommendation from the county Planning Board in May, creates a zoning overlay district aimed at mitigating development impacts along the highway.

The district looks to add design standards to mitigate development impacts by including landscaping, buffering, signs, architectural design, lighting and transportation improvements.

In addition, the proposal looks to rezone property in the corridor from mainly agricultural — about 37 acres would become secondary business, about 84 would become business service district and about 145 acres would become suburban agriculture with a minim lot size of 5 acres.

The city of Whitefish has said it supports the zoning overlay district, but opposes the proposed zone change of rural zoning to commercial zoning south of Montana 40.

Taylor said the design standards included in the overlay are consistent with the city’s standards.

“We think this will go a long way to protecting the gateway to Whitefish,” he said.

However, Taylor said, the city opposes commercial zoning south of Montana 40 because the infrastructure is not adequate to handle more business in the area, including transportation issues with high traffic in the area. He said a study should be done to determine the corridor’s future before zoning is changed on “large swaths of land.”

“Adding 120 acres of new commercial property south of highway 40 will have a significant negative impact on existing commercial property in city limits,” Taylor said.

In response to the comments, Mitchell asked Taylor if the city of Whitefish would like to have no commercial property outside city limits, which prompted a brief exchange between them.

“What would you like people who have been out there for 20 years to do, close up and leave?” Mitchell asked.

Taylor said the city understands that some of the existing businesses need to be legitimized and there is still ways for them to expand under current regulations.

“We did design the business service district for areas along the highway like have been used on [Montana 40,] but we never envisioned it to be used for a large strip along the highway for three-quarters of a mile.”

Mitchell asked if the city has not paid attention to planning in the area in the past.

“Is is fair to say the city of Whitefish has chosen for 10 years to ignore this area while it was under your control,” Mitchell said.

“We didn’t ignore this area,” Taylor replied.

“Yeah, you did,” Mitchell responded.

“We didn’t have the cooperation with the other entities involved to work on a plan like this,” Taylor continued, appearing to reference earlier comments made that the county rejected an offer by the city to create a joint corridor plan for the area.

“OK, enough,” Mitchell said.

During public comment, Mayre Flowers, with Citizens for a Better Flathead, raised a number of concerns about the proposal. Chief among her points was that mitigation needs to occur as the area expands with commercial development. She said the proposed secondary business zoning opens the door to inappropriate development that could let retail business move outside downtown Whitefish, which the city does not want.

“You need to look at how to manage the expansion appropriately,” she said. “We need a plan that doesn’t allow for creeping commercial sprawl.”

“You need to work with Whitefish, Kalipsell and Columbia Falls to create planning for all corridors in the county,” she added.

The private plan for Highway 93 South came to city after land planner Dave DeGrandpre of Charlo was retained by the property owners several years ago to draft the corridor plan.

The area is part of the former planning “doughnut” outside of the city limits. A Montana Supreme Court ruling in 2014 ceded planning control of the doughnut from the city to the county following a long-running legal battle between the two governments over its control.

DeGrandpre said the overlay includes design standards that match the city and is stricter than anything else in the county and scale of the commercial development will depend on development already in place in the corridor.

“The city of Whitefish is a big economic driver for the county — we want to protect that,” he said.