There will be a public meeting regarding changes made to the Flathead County Growth Policy as part of a yearlong process to update the document.
During the meeting, scheduled for Feb. 15 at 6 p.m., members of the public will have the opportunity to comment on the updates before the Flathead County Planning Board makes its decision on whether to recommend the changes before the document is passed along to the Flathead County Commission.
The updates are part of a growth policy requirement that the planning board revise it every five years, updating “existing characteristics and projected trends … (m)arket fluctuations, environmental events, shifts in custom and culture, and all other changes in the community.”
The planning board began the process in mid-2010, following steps laid out in the growth policy. In order to streamline the process, the board held a meeting in October 2010 at which the public could speak about changes they would like to see.
According to planning staff reports, the general feeling of the 12 people who showed up was they would like to keep the growth policy as it is and asked the board not to “dilute” the document’s content.
Based on these comments, the board created a work plan to generally update the growth policy instead of a broader revision. The county commissioners approved this work plan in January 2011.
Since then, the planning board has held more than 20 work sessions on the updates. County Planner Allison Mouch said that other than correcting misspellings or incorrect information, the board spent most of its time on several major sections.
The largest changes were made in Chapter 5, which expounds on the county’s economic status. The economic data in the Flathead has changed a lot since the document’s was created in 2007, Mouch said, and the board tried to tie in an economic development plan as well.
Another major update is the addition of new Chapter 9, which deals with sand and gravel resources. This is a mandate from the state Legislature, Mouch noted, and the previous Chapter 9, “Implementation Strategies,” was shifted to Chapter 10.
The board also integrated a section about property rights in Flathead County, which stemmed from a request for a property owners’ bill of rights. The new section is part of the growth policy’s preface to provide a broader context to the multi-faceted issue of property rights, Mouch said.
To help facilitate the document, Mouch said the planning board also created a user’s guide to the growth policy, which details how it is used and how it links to various regulations.
The planning board will take public comments from the Feb. 15 meeting into account before voting on a recommendation for the document’s updates, Mouch said. The initial goal was to have the updates finalized and adopted by April.
A full version of the draft Flathead County Growth Policy is available on the planning and zoning department’s website, at www.flathead.mt.gov/planning_zoning.
Comments may also be submitted in writing to the Flathead County Planning and Zoning Office, located at 1035 First Avenue West, Kalispell, MT 59901. Comments may also be submitted via email to [email protected].