Affordable housing development gets OK from planning board

Despite concerns from neighbors over high groundwater and traffic, the Whitefish Planning Board gave its recommendation for a 58-lot affordable housing project off Monegan Road.

Recommending approval by a 4-1 vote, the board cited the community’s need for housing as the biggest factor behind giving the project an OK last week. Judy Hessellund was the lone dissenting vote.

Board member John Middleton said he understood the concerns from the public, but the community benefit of the project was too much to overlook.

“I’m conflicted by this because there is an extraordinary community benefit,” Middleton said. “The October 2016 housing report indicated that we need 580 of these types of units to serve these income levels, and this takes 10 percent of that. It’s a pretty significant chunk.”

Stephen Flink, providing technical assistance on the development, told the board the project hoped to fill a gap in the Whitefish housing market.

“The main goal of the project is to provide workforce housing for the greater Whitefish area,” he said. “We thought the best way to do that on this particular lot to fit in with adjacent subdivisions was to provide single residential units, and that’s a market within the greater Whitefish area that’s not being provided at this time.”

The proposed development, located near the intersection of Monegan and Voerman roads, would provide 100 percent of the project as affordable — with 50 percent of the homes with traditional deed restriction based on income and 50 percent of the homes for local workers and not income restricted.

The property is currently vacant, but has been used for haying operations over the years.

Concerns over traffic and high groundwater were present during public comment at the meeting concerning the development known as Trail View.

Homeowner Jan Mazurkiewicz has a home in the nearby Creekwood subdivision and said the traffic concerns, which include a high volume of vehicles, sharp turns and steep shoulders on the road, are enough to warrant waiting on this particular development.

A traffic impact study shows that the project will generate an average of 684 daily vehicle trips at full build-out over a three-year period.

“We all support new communities that will serve the Whitefish workforce, but we strongly urge the city to repair the infrastructure before the development is approved. We all know that Whitefish is a great place to visit, but we also want it to be a safe and great place to live,” Mazurkiewicz said.

Sonya Herrick, also a Creekwood resident, echoed that concern.

“We have a huge amount of traffic that goes through our community. One of our neighbors took a count, in 15 minutes I think there were 45 cars that went by. This would have a tremendous increase within our community. Our roads are terrible in there already,” she said.

Responding to comments developer of the project Jerry Dunker said he understands the traffic concerns but stressed that there wouldn’t be a huge immediate impact.

“I’m a full time employee at Kalispell Regional, I take calls 15 to 20 days every month, so I’m fully aware of the demands of call and response and traffic,” he said. “This is a three to four-year project. There’s not going to be 20 new kids going to the schools next year.”

Other residents in the area asked that the high groundwater issues in the area be solved before any new developments.

Jake Cook, a Creekwood homeowner, said it’s an infrastructure problem.

“I kind of see this as an infrastructure kind of problem that we’ve got here. I’m not opposed to the development so much. Yes, we’ve got water issues, when you add that much impervious surface to that land, that water’s got to go somewhere,” he said. “I feel like it’s really important to be able to drain that water.”

Flink said the units would not have basements or crawl spaces due to high groundwater concerns in the area. Because of that restriction, the units are proposing a maximum building height of 38-feet where the standard in the zoning district of Residential-1 is 35 feet.

“We do not want to displace water and adversely affect any residences that are downstream to the west of this project,” Flink said.

Trail View is proposed to be developed in three phases starting with the north 13 lots, then the central 30 lots and finally the southerly 15 lots. The developer is proposing two- and three-story homes ranging from 900 to 1,300 square feet in clusters of 10 homes surrounding open spaces.

A planned unit development is intended to encourage flexible land use development while allowing for a deviation to development standards in exchange for community benefit.

Flink said the development was based on the cluster strategy from the Whitefish building code, which utilizes smaller lot sizes and maximizes open space.

The developer is also proposing reduced side and rear yard setbacks, reduced lot widths of 37-feet rather than the standard 60-feet, and reduced lot size of 2,478-square-feet rather than the standard 10,000-square-feet.

For open space, the project would go above what is required with a dedication to the city of 1.56 acres to the north end of the development and a 20-foot trail easement along the western boundary that would connect a public trail to the city’s Rocksund Trail. The developer is asking that the city pay for paving that trail.

No improvements are planned to Monegan Road as the city is planning improvements to the sewer treatment plant to the south and plans to reconstruct Monegan as part of that project. Trail View is expected to pay its share of those improvements and dedicate 10-feet of right-of-way along Monegan, which is currently at a sub-standard width of 40 feet.

While an extended Monegan Road was mentioned several times during public comment, City Works Director Craig Workman noted the city doesn’t have any plans currently under review that would complete that road.

Board member Judy Hessellund said she liked the plan, but had heard too much from Creekwood homeowners during the growth policy meetings over a decade ago to recommend this project.

“The main thing we had is that everyone who lived in that area and wanted it to be kept rural, and this just seems too dense for the other zoning and right where it is,” she said. “There are some other places that would work better than this. I’d love to vote for it, but because of everyone who came to the growth policy meetings and said this was to be a more rural area, I can’t turn my back on them.”

The plan will move on to City Council for a public hearing during the May 7 meeting at Whitefish City Hall.