City Council meeting features rezoning requests, residential trash bin update

An applicant’s request for postponement last Monday night during the city council meeting shorted what would have been a long night.

With two councilors missing from the Aug. 15 meeting, the Whitefish City Council postponed a hearing regarding a major rezoning with additional requests for land on Edgewood Drive.

All ordinances require a two-thirds majority of the council to vote in favor for passage. Since Councilors Steve Qunell and Giuseppe Caltabiano were absent and excused, all four of the remaining council members would have to vote unanimously for the ordinance in order for it to pass.

In the meeting, the council also voted to reconsider a separate ordinance as well for the same reason.

The request from Will MacDonald and Edgewood LLC involved rezoning the large property on Edgewood as well as a growth policy map amendment, preliminary plat and planned unit development overlay. All items except the map amendment would require the two-thirds vote.

“I did have the applicant’s representative for (Edgewood LLC) request the council consider postponement of all four items to the Sept. 6 meeting because three of those four items do require two-thirds vote of the city council for approval,” said Mayor John Muhlfeld.

Council voted in favor of postponing the decision on the Edgewood LLC requests.

Earlier that night, the council heard the City of Whitefish’s request to rezone about 31 acres of recently annexed land from suburban agricultural to what Whitefish City Planner Dave Taylor described as the closest equivalent city zone, WCR, or country residential district. The land is west of Highway 93 between JP Road and Park Knoll.

The council held a public hearing that featured three members of the community expressing concerns about the rezoning. Lindsay Hromadka, representative of the South Whitefish Neighborhood Association, along with two nearby property owners mentioned the seasonal drainage, the wetlands and the general “floody” nature of the piece of land.

The council voted 3 to 1 in favor of the request, with Councilor Frank Sweeney voting in opposition.

The council later elected to reconsider the rezoning at the Sept. 6 meeting because Sweeney voted against it and it failed to receive the two-thirds vote necessary to pass. There will not be another public hearing for this item.

IMMEDIATELY TO the east of that 31 acres of land are two tracts, one about 19 acres and one that is approximately 11 acres for which Carter Unger on behalf of Uppercut 57/Eagle Enterprises also requested zone changes. The larger lot will change from country residential to estate residential and two-family residential while the 11-acre lot, which is currently split zoned, will change from estate residential to two-family residential while the secondary business zone remains.

Each zone change comes with special conditions that apply to the area adjacent to Park Knoll Lane west of the future Baker Avenue extension. The conditions include a 5-foot increase in the minimum setbacks and only single-family residences will be developed in that area.

David Hunt, resident of Park Knoll, represented the owners of 12 lots on Park Knoll and offered support for the requested zone.

“We still maintain high concerns regarding the WR-2 zone densities but feel that these special conditions have reduced those concerns considerably,” Hunt said.

Lisa Post, Great Northern Heights HOA president, presented the council with a letter containing the signatures of 28 residents who support the zoning change.

Council voted unanimously to approve the rezoning request.

NEAR THE END of the meeting, Councilor Rebecca Norton requested an update regarding the plan for the bear-resistant trash bins. City Manager Dana Smith said the city is excited to start the rollout later this month or in early September and there is a plan to get more information to the public soon.

“What the city has done, working with Republic and FWP, was divide the city into four quadrants — north of the viaduct and east and west of Baker Avenue (and Wisconsin),” Smith said. “We have the northwest portion of the city starting first, along the beach where we see a lot of bear activity. It will go northwest, southwest, southeast and then northeast.”

She said they hope to have everything rolled out by the end of November.