Whitefish Council Still Considering New Zoning District

The Whitefish City Council voted at a Feb. 22 meeting to postpone its public hearing on adding a new business transitional zoning district to the Whitefish City Code for use in attracting certain types of developments in the area along Highway 93 south of Highway 40 in exchange for annexation which would allow access to city services, like water. Adopting the zoning district would have been part of the implementation of the Highway 93 South Corridor Plan, which was adopted by the council in December.

The reluctance to adopt the zoning district, despite city staff finding it to be consistent with the corridor plan, seemed to be driven by unease among some members of the council who are concerned about the extent of the businesses and development types that it would allow, with some councilors even expressing interest in further limiting what would be allowable in the district.

Ultimately Mayor John Muhlfeld put forward the idea of continuing the discussion at the March 7 council meeting. The mayor suggested taking more time to dwell on it after hearing the reluctance from councilors and seeing that Councilor Giuseppe Caltabiano could not get a second on a motion to approve.

Councilor Andy Feury said he was close to seconding the motion, but indicated he has too many reservations still about the zoning district and what it would allow, both in terms of the types of developments and the allowable size for developments. Feury did acknowledge that the discussion concerns an area that’s already largely commercial, and that there’s a need to keep the zoning attractive enough to increase the likelihood of developers petitioning for annexation. The motion to postpone passed on a 5 to 1 vote, with Caltabiano as the lone vote against.

Should the council decide to tighten the guidelines for the transitional zoning district too much the risk is that developers will just go with the pre-existing county zoning.

“If there’s no incentive for them to annex then they’re just going to develop in the county where there’s no regulation,” said Dave Taylor, the city’s planning and building director.

The zoning district would stipulate what types of development the city would find suitable for the area, and include things like landscaping and access requirements, with the goal being to create a zoning district that is comparable to similar county zoning in the area, but still more restrictive, so that developers interested in city services like water and sewage might be willing to work with the city in order to successfully petition for annexation.  

 The new transitional zoning district, which is designed specifically for the area in question, would also be less permissive than current business zoning in Whitefish and was put together with an eye towards preventing land uses that would lead to increased traffic which could be hazardous in an area with limited access and traffic controls. Some of the “more egregious uses” under the zoning district would fall under conditional use, which would trigger a process in which the city’s planning board and council would get to weigh in. Taylor, the city’s planning and building director, listed off the examples of auto repair shops, restaurants, hotels and grocery stores as among the 39 types of land uses that are permissible under county zoning in the area in question, but would fall under conditional use under the new transitional zoning district, which means the planning board and council would have a chance to weigh in.

“Maybe they can come through our process and it goes through arc review (architectural review), and we get to dictate the landscaping and the access, rather than it just going into the county,” Taylor said, explaining how the zoning district could work in action. “The intent is to try to make it palatable enough so that someone would at least consider trying to get on city water and sewer and then put themselves through the process, hoping that whatever they want to do it would get a favorable nod from the city if they meet our standards. If there’s no incentive for them to annex they’re just going to develop in the county where there’s no regulation.”

Some of the types of uses that would be permitted by right in the zoning district include building and contractor yards, churches, daycares, light assembly manufacturing, medical clinics, nurseries with landscape materials, professional offices and recreational facilities. “Residential units above ground floor commercial would be a permitted use, but multifamily would be a conditional use,” Taylor said.

 Adopting the zoning district is, in the estimation of Muhlfeld, is part four of a four-part process.

 “The way I look at it is we went through the corridor planning process, the plan was adopted. At the same time we extended our urban growth boundary and our annexation plan to accommodate this area of town, south of town, and then secondly, or thirdly, we went through the growth policy amendment and changed the underlying land use. This is basically the fourth of four steps in my opinion,” Muhlfeld said.

 City staff recommended approval of the new zoning district ahead of the meeting, and Taylor said during the meeting that he was aware of properties in that area preparing to petition for annexation.

During discussion Councilor Steve Qunell asked about the council’s ability generally to downzone a property in the zoning district in order to open the way for housing that wouldn’t currently fall under the proposed zoning district. City Attorney Angela Jacobs said historically in annexation situations the city has zoned according to the closest comparison to the county zoning on the property. Jacobs also said there could be legal issues with down zoning.

Muhlfeld said he had also thought about a downzone scenario, but that in his view a petitioner would likely pull out if the city tried to downzone.

Councilor Ben Davis’ concerns focused on the 10,000 square foot size limit for developments in the zoning district, which suggested could be too large. Councilor Rebecca Norton gave approval of some of the landscaping requirements, but said that the list appeared too commercial, and described how it’s a quiet area for the people who live out there. She asked about removing things like auto sales, boat sales and mini storage use units from the conditional use permitting for the zoning.

 Norton also asked Taylor whether or not there had been any outreach about the transitional zoning district and what it would allow.

 “I mean, we went through this long process of the Highway 93 plan where people were all invited to participate in that,” Taylor said, adding that a lot of property owners in the area had participated in that, and that it had gone through “the planning board, multiple public hearings, multiple work sessions with the city council and the planning board where this was discussed over and over.”