At a joint work session of the Kalispell City Council and Planning Board last week, members of both indicated it’s time for the city to focus its annexation policy more on infill and less on extending to the north and south, as it did during recent years of rapid expansion.
“Hindsight is 20/20,” Councilman Tim Kluesner said. “We probably shouldn’t have gone out as far as we did.”
The shift in philosophy regarding growth represents a change in how Kalispell has expanded, by extending water and sewer lines, and emergency services to industrial developments like Old School Station to the south and residential developments like Silverbrook Estates to the north – then allowing additional development to fill in the area between those islands of city land.
But as real estate prices have declined along with the broader economy, those areas have not filled in and vast approved subdivisions remain largely empty. Providing services to those areas has cost Kalispell money, without the return of tax dollars that would have occurred if those subdivisions were filling up with new residents. As a result, council members seem deeply reluctant to approve future development that would expand the city’s limits, not that any developers are bringing such projects forward.
“At some point in time we have to realize that we can’t provide everything for everyone,” Councilman Duane Larson said. “We can’t really adequately take care of what we have now.”
Looking at several maps of Kalispell’s future growth extending as far out as 50 years, Planning Board President Bryan Schutt suggested a “gradiated” approach, where new developments a quarter-mile out from current city limits could be considered, but anything as far as a half-mile away would likely not.
“A gradiated policy allows for some predictability,” Schutt said, adding that it, “kind of gives us the infill we’re wanting without spreading us too far out afield.”
Kluesner suggested even considering new developments a quarter-mile out was inappropriate considering how much inventory Kalispell currently has within its borders, and holding off on further expansion might also aid current developers in building on the lots already approved.
“It’s going to take a long time just to fill these in,” Kluesner said. “Maybe we owe a little bit to them to tighten this down.”
Chad Graham, of the planning board, suggested taking it a step further and tying Kalispell’s annexation policy to the build-out of current lots: for example, not approving new developments that would expand the city limits until existing subdivisions achieved 50 percent of build-out.
Mayor Tammi Fisher, who pledged to reexamine Kalispell’s annexation policy as part of her campaign last year, said the idea of a gradiated approach was “lovely” and liked the idea of tying approval to conservative build-out estimates. She also suggested requiring letters of approval from the police and fire departments stating that they would be able to adequately service any new developments.
But most important, Fisher added, was that once the city agreed on a new policy, it should not make exceptions.
“I also think that as a council it should be our policy to stick to whatever policy we ultimately adopt,” Fisher said. “We cannot do things just to accommodate a developer.”