On Aug. 17, the Flathead County Commission will host a public hearing about whether the county should extend the Rural Whitefish Interim Zoning District for another year.
The interim zoning went into place on Sept. 9 last year, in a flurry of governmental movement after the Montana Supreme Court ruled on July 15, 2014 that Flathead County held jurisdiction over the extraterritorial area around Whitefish, commonly referred to as the doughnut.
Once the court reached its ruling, Whitefish ceased its control over the area, creating a governing vacuum in the doughnut, which the county commission eased with emergency zoning.
That zoning included areas in the doughnut that had previously existed under Whitefish-created zones. Then-planning director BJ Grieve said the county would apply zones closest to the Whitefish designations.
Since adopting the interim zoning, county planning staff has been working on potential zoning map and text amendments for the previous Whitefish-zoned lands. However, since the map and text amendments haven’t yet been adopted, there would be nothing in place when the interim zoning expires on Sept. 9.
According to a study from the Flathead County Planning and Zoning Office, released on July 8, the situation presents an emergency, because if the land goes essentially unzoned, there would be confusion on permitted uses, setbacks, lot configurations, and other zoning matters with “the potential to impact the safety and general welfare of the public.”
Yet the public process required to create these zones takes time, the study notes, thus the interim zoning should be extended.
In Feburary, the commission endorsed a plan to repeal the 1996 Whitefish City -County Master Plan with corresponding revisions to the Flathead County Growth Policy, and adopting Part 2 zoning, also known as permanent county-initiated zoning.
Public comment on the proposed changes to the growth policy ends on Aug. 25. Public comment on rescinding the Whitefish City-County Master Plan ends also ends Aug. 25.