The small crowd cheered and doled out high-fives at the Flathead County Commissioners’ meeting room on Dec. 1, a jubilant reaction to the 2-0 vote to adopt the final resolution approving the Lakeside neighborhood plan.
The vote came after three years of work, 27 versions of the plan and several turbulent meetings. Creating the plan prompted at least one lawsuit from some residents and accusations of the county breaking public meeting laws.
Before the final vote, Flathead County Commissioner Dale Lauman expressed his support for the plan and denounced the implications of improper conduct by county planning employees or the volunteer planning committee.
“I know by living in the community that it is supported by the majority of the Lakeside community,” said Commissioner Dale Lauman, adding later, “I support the plan in its entirety.”
Lauman said he requested the sizeable packet of information about the meetings held on the neighborhood plan and found nothing controversial within the material. He also said the commissioners have received some negative comments about the plan, but public sentiment has largely been positive.
“Lakeside is a unique area,” Lauman said. “It’s a community that somebody proposes something good and most everybody is on board.”
Some of the negative comments expressed concerns over new zoning that would be enacted if the neighborhood plan were to be implemented, Lauman said, but he dispelled those notions. Green-lighting a neighborhood plan does not mean automatic zoning, he said.
“(Neighborhood plans) are not cast in stone; they are not regulatory,” Lauman said. “It’s a plan for the future. Everybody plans for the future.”
Commissioner Joe Brenneman said property rights have been a big issue in the debate over the updated plan, and it is sometimes overlooked that individual property owners have the right to form neighborhood plans.
He commended the planning committee on their hard and thorough work throughout the years, and then said he would vote in favor of the plan, eliciting applause.
Commissioner Jim Dupont was not present for the vote, but Brenneman said Dupont wished to convey his support for the plan as well.
In 2007, the county ordered the Lakeside Community Council to update the neighborhood plan, put in place in 1994, to comply with the county’s growth policy. The plan’s boundaries are unchanged from the 1994 version, encompassing land from Spring Creek to the Lake County line and from Flathead Lake to the U.S. Forest Service border.
The updated plan contains new sections on a Lakeside community vision; current demographics; the state of the economy; description of the natural environment; an acreage map of public and private land ownership; in-depth looks at public facilities; appropriate locations for growth and a monitoring plan for the goals and implementation strategies, among others.
The Flathead County Planning Board recommended approval for the 27th iteration of the plan in September.
Residents can find a digital copy of the Lakeside neighborhood plan at http://flathead.mt.gov/planning_zoning.