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City looks at adding workforce housing to zoning code

by HEIDI DESCH
Daily Inter Lake | January 18, 2017 8:22 AM

Whitefish is considering adding a few tools to the city zoning code that would allow for creating workforce housing.

Four text amendments related to workforce housing will go before the city Planning Board on Thursday. The board will hold a public hearing on the changes beginning at 6 p.m. an interim City Hall.

City planning staff is proposing the changes after being contacted over the past few months about developing multi-family housing and providing workforce housing in the WB-2 secondary commercial zone. A workforce housing study, created in a partnership with the city and Whitefish Chamber of Commerce, released last month, showed that Whitefish needs almost 1,000 affordable housing units added to the city by 2020 to make up for current shortage and plan for future needs.

Senior Planner Wendy Compton-Ring in a memo to the Planning Board said the changes come ahead of the second phase of the housing study, which will identify ways to provide more housing options.

“There is an immediate need to add these options into the zoning for summer workers,” she said. “This is also an opportunity for the Planning Board and Council to start looking at these options for Whitefish and to begin thinking about other ways to provide for additional housing.”

The first text amendment would permit multi-family and workforce housing above ground-floor commercial in the WB-2 zone. The amendment is intended to permit multi-family and workforce housing above ground-floor commercial as a permitted use. It would create incentives for residential apartments while maintaining commercial uses below, resulting in mixed-use facilities, Compton-Ring noted.

The second text amendment would allow multi-family and workforce housing in the WB-2 zone with a conditional use permit. The WB-2 currently has the most available development land, and there is a greater need for residential units than for more commercial development that could compete with downtown. Currently, the only way to develop multi-family for a planned unit development, which as a more rigorous review process, according to the planing department.

Compton-Ring said in her memo that planning staff has visited with multiple property owners who are interested in doing multi-family in the zoning designation, but either don’t meet the minimum lot size of two acres and/or do not have a property that would lend itself to offer the community a benefit, such as a road connection, a trail or some other amenity.

The third text amendment looks to provide a parking standard for workforce housing of one parking space per room.

The final text amendment creates a definition of workforce housing as a multi-family dwelling intended for employees — that are seasonal, part-time, or full time — with rooms arranged under one roof with or without an on-site manger. The presence of a communal kitchen and bathrooms conclusively establishes the intent for workforce housing. The housing can be located on the same lot as the employer or may be on its own lot. Included in the definition are bunkhouse, barracks, dormitory and efficiency apartments, but is not intended for rentals of less than 30 days.

City Council is set to hold a public hearing on the text amendments on Feb. 6.