Board recommends changes for WB-2 business zoning

The Whitefish Planning Board last week voted to recommend changes to the list of uses allowed in the WB-2 zoning district for along the U.S. 93 Highway corridor.

The shift makes updates for what is a permitted use and what requires a conditional use for the zone. Council previously directed the planning department to make the changes to the code, which is expected to provide additional opportunity for review of the uses before approval.

Planning Director Dave Taylor said Council wanted to have some more comprehensive review of certain uses that would be able to address among other things aesthetic impacts and traffic concerns.

Under the change, a conditional use permit would be required for automobile, boat and RV sales, rentals, repairs and services, as well as machinery and equipment sales and rentals and repair, crematories and formula restaurants.

The proposed change also looked to move personal services — like catering, recreational guiding or hair salons — to permitted uses, but the board thought those would better fit under the conditional use permit category.

Councilor Andy Feury, serving on the planning board, said those kind of businesses still need to be approved.

“They can’t stand alone in a building, so they end up in strip malls,” he said. “We don’t want to have a proliferation of those.”

Board member Scott Freudenberger questioned requiring formula restaurants to obtain a conditional use permit.

“It seems restrictive to one particular industry,” he said.

Taylor said the zone has many formula businesses and it is the zone that makes sense for formula restaurants, but those type of restaurants are often designed with a certain aesthetic that might not match Whitefish.

“If they have to obtain a CUP then we can make sure they don’t look like all the restaurants other places,” he said. “It provides for more review from Council.”

Under the proposed changes, light manufacturing and light assembly would become an administrative conditional use.

Taylor said this would give a faster approval process while still allowing conditions of approval to mitigate impacts, noting there is a limited amount of industrial zoned property in the city and the WB-2 zone has ample land to allow for light manufacturing uses to mix with the commercial uses that are permitted.

Research laboratories and institutions would be added as a conditional use in the WB-2.

Planning staff recommended removing frozen food lockers and bus depots from the permitted uses in the zone because they are likely obsolete uses.

Board member Whitney Beckham said she didn’t want to see bus depots removed from the zone entirely and suggested it be moved to conditional uses. The board approved the recommendation.

The WB-2 business district is designed for retail sales and services that need large parking, display or storage areas.

The planning board also voted to recommend changes to the zoning code to update the special provisions section of the multi-family development standards.

Taylor said the changes generally look to clarify the intent of the regulations.

Planning staff in the past has asked for a conditional use permit for apartment buildings if there is more than one building planned on a single lot, but the change encourages multiple buildings with smaller scale and massing.

“What we’re trying to do is encourage smaller buildings that fit in with the neighborhood better,” he said.