Kalispell City Council Considers Ordinance Amendment to Address Outlaw Inn Eyesore
The proposed amendment would place unsafe buildings like the Outlaw under fire code regulation, allowing city officials to enforce violations as civil offenses
By Zoë Buhrmaster
Kalispell City Council discussions over the past few months concerning the former Outlaw Inn’s disrepair will culminate in a council vote next week as city leaders consider amending municipal code to include vacant or unsafe buildings. If approved, the amendment would give city officials actionable enforcement authority to gain compliance from the owners of vacant and dilapidated buildings.
Rebranded as the FairBridge Inn & Suites and Outlaw Convention Center, the building at 1701 U.S. 93 S. has sat vacant for over two years despite plans by owner Fortify Holdings, LLC, to convert the hotel into 250 studio apartment units. The vacancy has led to frequent trespassing on the 9-acre property, which has become overgrown with weeds, vandalized with graffiti and has had its windows broken, prompting Kalispell residents and city officials to express outrage over its current condition.
At previous meetings, council members have raised concerns about the security and safety of vacant buildings and how to enforce property maintenance.
“While current municipal code does not provide for securing a building under our nuisance code, a vacant structure that is not secured against unauthorized entry can be deemed unsafe under Fire Code,” Kalispell City Manager Doug Russell explained in a Jan. 13 report to Mayor Mark Johnson.
Current municipal fire code establishes a 60-day time frame to address violations and identifies them as criminal offenses, “which can be problematic,” according to Russell.
The amendment to existing fire code would sharpen its enforcement mechanism, making it so that unsafe buildings found to be in violation of the code — structures not secured against unauthorized entry — would have to be addressed in an expedited time frame of 10 days, as opposed to the fire code’s current 60-day time frame to respond to code violations.
The second component of the amendment would label unsafe building code infringements as a civil offense instead of a criminal one, which fire code violations currently fall under.
Updating the code to a civil infraction would allow the city to seek an abatement through a judicial order. That differs from the current criminal code, which solely entails an arrest and fine and is difficult to implement, Russell said during a council work session on Jan. 13.
“It is important to note that though this process would be placed under enforcement through the Fire Code, just like the tall grass ordinance, these types of enforcement activities still take resources to implement, especially when compliance is not achieved in a timely fashion,” Russell wrote in the report to Mayor Johnson.
While the policy changes would create specific city ordinance and actionable steps for regulating unsafe buildings, Russell said the city would need to revisit whether to designate a code enforcement officer down the road, as the city currently lacks the proper staffing and resources for regular code enforcement.
Other local communities, such as Roundup and Whitefish, also use compliance officers to enforce city ordinances.
“We don’t have the resources to make this a full-fledged program,” Russell said during the meeting.
The council will put the posed changes to vote next week during the council meeting on Jan. 21.