Board holds work session on Highway 93 plan, four public hearings Thursday

The Whitefish Planning Board leads off its Thursday meeting with a work session on the draft Highway 93 South corridor plan.

The meeting begins at 6 p.m., but an open house at 5 p.m., both at City Hall will also feature details on the plan. The corridor plan is a long-range plan that looks at how the corridor will grow over the next 10 years in terms of land use, transportation, environment and open space. The plan includes goals, objectives and implementation items for the corridor.

The boundary for the plan extends from the edges of downtown at 6th Street on Baker Avenue and Spokane Avenues to 2 miles south of Montana 40.

The draft plan is slated to go before the city Planning Board and City Council for formal public hearings and votes in late summer.

The draft plan is available on the city’s website at www.cityofwhitefish.org under the planning and building long range plans page.

The planning board will also hold four public hearings on Thursday.

Don Kaltschmidt of Eagle Enterprises is requesting a conditional use permit to expand the footprint of the Don K car dealership on Highway 93 South. The expansion would connect the Chrysler dealership building to the body shop building to the north, enclose the existing covered drop-off area beside the building and expand the showroom.

The total square footage for the three additions is 7,800 square feet. The total square footage of the building once all additions are made would be about 52,700 square feet.

This is the third building expansion request in the past two years.

Maureen Casey is requesting a conditional use permit for a guest house at 350 Armory Road. The proposal is to add a new primary residence to the property and then designate the existing structure on the property as a guest house.

A zone change is being requested by the city to rezone one parcel recently annexed into the city limits from county one-family residential to the city’s one-family residential district. The property, at 1625 Highway 93 W, contains a single-family home.

The city is requesting an amendment to the Legacy Homes Program in order to modify the formerly mandatory inclusionary zoning program into a voluntary program with incentives.