Council approves minor 4-acre subdivision on Colorado Avenue

At the Whitefish City Council meeting last week, Councilor Steve Qunell served as acting deputy mayor and only three other councilors were in attendance when they voted unanimously to approve a 16-lot subdivision on Colorado Avenue.

The request for a preliminary plat for the development of nearly four acres at 817 Colorado Avenue was made by owners Derek Crittenden, James Rutherford, Bill Carter and Colton Behr. They have named the subdivision Après Village.

The zoning on the parcel, WR-3, allows for single-family or two-family dwellings but the applicants have indicated they intend to build only single-family homes on lots ranging from 6,000 to 8,470 square feet.

“With the zoning district, they could build up to 46 units and have a multiplex-type of development but they’re choosing to do single-family,” Whitefish Senior City Planner Wendy Compton-Ring said.

According to Compton-Ring, the cul de sac will be a 60-foot-wide dedicated public right-of-way and will be accessed off of Colorado Avenue.

The end of the cul de sac is located near Texas Avenue to facilitate a potential connection in the future.

“As properties are developing, we’re making sure that the public rights of way go to the edge of the lot so at some point in the future… there’s an opportunity to connect through,” she said.

The plans include a 14,200-square-foot homeowners’ park located in the southeast corner of the neighborhood.

Carter, a partner in the venture along with his son, a college roommate and a good friend, told the council they are a “group of local guys.”

“We feel like we’re doing a project in the best interest of the city,” Carter said. “We certainly could have done higher density (but) this is a project we just feel that we want to do.”

Two longtime nearby neighbors voiced their concerns about the development which included high ground water, traffic, drainage and its impact on wildlife.

Cody Johnson with 406 Engineering said they monitored the parcel last spring and found the highest ground water to be in the southeast corner where they are proposing underground storm detention.

“We’re definitely taking high ground water into consideration,” Johnson said. “And we’ll have a more detailed set of plans that the city will review shortly.”

City staff recommended approval of the request subject to 15 conditions including submission of a tree preservation/retention plan and improvements to the west side of Colorado Avenue where there is a bike path/sidewalk.

“Colorado Avenue was reconstructed a number of years ago and there’s a shared-use path on the west side of the street but not the east side where this subdivision is located,” Compton-Ring said. “We’ll have the applicant improve a crosswalk from the subdivision over to that shared-use path.”

Since no variances were requested, the project was eligible for an expedited review, therefore did not need to go through the Whitefish Planning Board. The council voted unanimously in favor of approving the preliminary plat.

“It would be nice if we could control subdivisions and require people to build housing for our local workforce but we can’t,” Qunell said, then alluded to the city’s previously utilized Legacy Homes program and the current legislative session. “We tried and the state took that right away from us and it might get worse in the next couple weeks, so we’ll see about that.”