Council assigns Business Transitional zoning district to gateway property

A recently annexed property located at the intersection of Highway 93 South and Montana 40 was the first to be rezoned with the city’s newly adopted WB-T (Business Transitional) district. The Whitefish City Council approved the zone change at last week’s regular meeting.

City staff had recommended to the planning board and then to the council that the county zoning of B-4 (Secondary Business) and SAG5 (Suburban Agricultural) be replaced with the city’s WB-2 (Secondary Business) and WCR (Country Residential), respectively, on the three parcels that total approximately 11 acres.

While rezoning the westernmost parts of the property to WCR was uncontested, the meat of the discussion was focused on whether WB-2 or WB-T zoning was more appropriate. The city planning staff recommended WB-2 and the Whitefish Planning Board recommended WB-T.

“The proposed zoning is the most equivalent to the city and is implementing the Highway 93 corridor plan. Staff is recommending the WB-2,” said Compton-Ring. “We did offer alternate findings of fact because (the planning board) was interested in considering the WB-T.”

The Whitefish Planning Board heard the rezoning request in March and postponed a decision until the newly adopted WB-T designation went into effect so they could take it into consideration. When the board discussed it in April, they voted 4-1 to recommend WB-T zoning to the city council.

The applicant in this case was the city, as the assignment of city zoning from county zoning is necessary when a property has been annexed into the city.

The owners of the property are Eric Payne of nuWest Builders and Dean Grommett. Payne told the council, as he had told the planning board twice before, that he and his partner had always believed the zoning would be WB-2 and that WB-T was too restrictive.

“The land fits the very definition of WB-2,” Payne said. “I believe the WB-T is far too restrictive and… should not apply to our zoning request. It will defeat the process for what we tried to start with this application which is giving oversight for these properties back to the city.”

He said members of the planning board told him the WB-T allows many of the same uses as WB-2 even if most fall under a conditional use. Payne then tallied up the permitted uses under the two zones for comparison and said the total was 54 uses for WB-2 and 22 for WB-T.

Payne displayed some concept drawings of the property that showed a park-like setting. He said their vision for the development was low-impact and that large box stores were not part of the vision. He also said repeatedly that he had no specific plans for the development.

“The more restrictive zoning would make us have to completely reevaluate this vision and reconsider the very act of requesting annexation in the first place,” Payne said.

Councilor Frank Sweeney recognized the difference in the number of land uses between the two zones and agreed that there are far fewer in the WB-T. Sweeney directly asked Payne how the reduced number of uses would affect his plans.

Payne said that extending city services to the intersection is extremely costly and that building a backage road is also expensive, causing the overall plan to “not pencil out” should the more restrictive zoning be in place.

“Now we’re looking at parcels that have far less use, much less valuable use to our potential tenants that won’t justify us bringing city utilities in there or creating a spectacular backage road,” Payne said.

Councilor Giuseppe Caltabiano made a motion to approve the original recommendation from the staff, the WB-2 zone, and it failed for lack of a second. Sweeney then made a motion to approve the WB-T zoning.

That motion was seconded and passed with a vote of 4-1 with Caltabiano in opposition. Prior to the vote, some councilors addressed the landowner.

Sweeney said both the citizens and the city want this parcel to be zoned WB-T. He added that the city only wants properties that would fit the city’s vision for the entrance to Whitefish.

“That is the intent of the corridor plan, that is the intent of the WB-T zone,” Councilor Steve Qunell added. “It does limit some of the things you can do and at the same time… if you really want to make this great, there is enough room for that to actually still happen.”

THE OTHER public hearing on the city council agenda last week was an approval of a conditional use permit (CUP) for a bar/tavern on Highway 93.

The application was to renew a conditional use permit that was previously approved in May of 2020 and had since expired. The only difference between now and then is that the property now has a newly-constructed car wash and coffee shop and a building ready for the bar/tavern.

“The (CUP) expired on May 4, 2020, as the use for a bar/tavern had not commenced and so this conditional use permit is to transfer a Montana beer and wine license to the property,” said City Planner Nelson Loring.

The building is zoned WB-2 (Secondary Business District) and the tavern will occupy an existing commercial building now addressed as 6185 Highway 93 South.

“From my understanding, it’s going to be a restaurant with beer and wine sales,” said Whitefish City Planner Dave Taylor.

The Whitefish Planning Board met on April 20, 2023, considered the request and voted unanimously to recommend approval to the council. Likewise, the city council voted unanimously to approve the permit.