Planning Board holds hearing on update to overlay regulations

A revision of Whitefish’s planned unit development zoning code goes before the Whitefish Planning Board this week.

The board meets at 6 p.m. Thursday at City Hall and will take public comment on the proposed changes. It’s expected to make a recommendation that will then be forwarded to City Council in August.

A PUD overlay enables a developer of a property to apply to alter certain standards such as lot size or building height in exchange for providing community benefits such as affordable housing, trails or greater environmental protections. A revision of the code began last year after neighbors of a proposed PUD raised concerns about the impact of blending higher commercial density across lower density portions of the project.

City Council placed a moratorium on PUD overlays that include blending density zoning and created an ad hoc committee to rewrite the regulations. The committee has spent the last several months drafting revisions to the code.

The committee reviewed PUD regulations for other cities in the state and outside Montana, according to Planning and Building Director David Taylor.

“There was a desire by some on the committee to make Whitefish’s PUD code more consistent with Flathead County’s PUD code as well as Kalispell’s, and the proposed changes to the PUD types reflects that,” Taylor said in his staff report.

Planning staff is recommending approval of the PUD update.

Taylor said a main directive of the City Council was to address density blending as part of PUDs.

“Blending density was a common practice under previously approved PUDs,” he said. “Currently, the PUD chapter does not specifically address how density is calculated where there are multiple underlying zones.”

The revision to the regulations looks to codify the method used by staff currently to average the density by acreage. The change would require that for PUD overlays that include more than one underlying zoning district they could not exceed the maximum average density.

For example, if a proposed two-acre residential PUD included one acre zoned for four dwelling units per acre maximum and one acre zoned 12 dwelling units per acre maximum, under the PUD the maximum average density allowed across the whole project would be eight dwelling units per acre.

A PUD gives the city flexibility to accommodate good development, Taylor notes.

“By using density blending, many approved projects have successfully moved higher density development away from environmentally sensitive areas such as streams or wetlands to more level, less impactful areas of a site,” Taylor said. “This flexibility also helps facilitate a variety of residential product types across a development site.”

Previously the PUD chapter in the city zoning code offered two types — residential and non-residential. The revision creates four types: residential, commercial, industrial and mixed-use. Each of the types has a list of exclusive zones identifying where one of the PUD types can be applied.

The committee wanted to be more specific in how and where PUDs could be applied to give more assurances to neighbors so it was revised to include four PUD types, Taylor noted.

Residential PUDs would be regulated to overlay only residential zoning districts, and they could not be blended with commercial zones to increase their allowed density unless it qualifies as a mixed-use PUD. Commercial uses, which previously were allowed for up to 10 percent in residential PUDs are now limited to PUDs of five acres or more.

The commercial PUD is for commercial retail or office type uses in commercial zones, but can also included residential two family and multi-family units.

The committee is recommending to set the high density residential and commercial dwelling unit bonus to a standard 25 percent bonus, while leaving the lower residential zone bonus as is.

A new chapter on affordable housing was added.

A draft ordinance can be found at the city Planning Office website at http://www.cityofwhitefish.org/planning-and-building/planning-and-zoning.php