More than four years of work culminated this week when Flathead County Commissioners voted unanimously to make the Bigfork Neighborhood Plan part of the county growth policy.
It was the end of a lengthy – and, at times, contentious – process, as community members and county government worked through the document piece by piece on multiple occasions. In the end, however, it wasn’t the plan itself that created heated debate among commissioners, but a last minute addition.
Commissioners Dale Lauman and Jim Dupont voted to include a land use amendment as part of the neighborhood plan, changing three adjoining parcels located north of Bigfork on Montana 83 from an agricultural to a light industrial designation.
The change circumvented a previous county decision on the same issue.
Property owner Mike Touris was denied a zone change at all levels of the process – Bigfork Land Use Advisory Committee, the county planning board and the commission – more than a year ago. Touris sued the county over that decision in a case that’s still pending.
The recent land use designation change will pave the way for approval for that project if the applicant reapplies.
Commissioner Joe Brenneman strenuously objected to the change, arguing that including it in the neighborhood plan without a public hearing was an effort to “bypass the public process and then go to the commissioner and make a request they treat us specially.” He said he believed the change could have merit if considered through the standard county process.
Touris had lobbied the commission over the last 30 days with a petition and letters from supporters as they considered the final draft of the plan. The land use amendment was not brought up or included in draft copies during the preceding four years of deliberations held at community committees or the planning board.
“I’m extremely disappointed we reverted to the good ol’ boy version of doing business instead of doing it in a public forum,” Brenneman said.
Lauman and Dupont didn’t respond to Brenneman’s accusations, having already said that they would looked at the property and felt it was an appropriate use.
The commission did make one other change to the plan, following BLUAC Chairwoman Shelley Gonzales’ recommendation to strike a sentence the county planning board had added clarifying the non-regulatory nature of the document. The commission agreed the inclusion was redundant, because state law already defines how the plans can be used.
The plan came to the commissioners with a unanimous recommendation for approval from the planning board, which spent nearly a year working on it. With the exception of the two alterations Tuesday, the commissioners’ unanimous vote of approval applied to the planning board’s amended version of the plan.
Lauman thanked the community members who worked on the plan, noting that he had experience with several himself and that it was a “very tedious job that takes a of time and effort and energy.”
For Brenneman the vote was bittersweet, however, as he again voiced his disgust at the land use amendment but said he would approve the plan out of respect for the years of work the community had put into it.