Whitefish Planning Commission Approves New Zoning and Subdivision Regulations

The Whitefish planning commission on Tuesday night approved and recommended to the city council a new set of zoning and subdivision regulations — the first of two phases of state-mandated updates to the code.

This first round of updates to the regulations is solely aimed at bringing the city into compliance with requirements outlined in the Montana Land Use Planning Act (MLUPA) ahead of the state’s deadline later this month, Planning and Building Director Dave Taylor said. 

MLUPA, which passed in May 2023, details a set of requirements for evaluating growth over the next 20 years, aiming to address the housing crisis by easing development standards and moving approval of individual projects to a faster, more administrative staff level with less public notice.

The legislation requires 10 cities across the state, including Whitefish, Kalispell and Columbia Falls, to adopt a new land use plan to replace its existing growth policies and update local zoning and subdivision regulations in accordance with MLUPA. 

After a nearly three-year process, city councilors late last month approved its new growth policy, the planning document that will guide growth for the next 20 years. City staff then quickly pivoted to begin updating the city zoning and subdivision regulations ahead of a May 18 deadline — a time crunch that has resulted in the multi-phased rewrite, Taylor said.

Later this summer, the city will take a second, more thorough look at its zoning and subdivision regulations to ensure the regulations align with the approved growth policy, also referred to as Vision Whitefish 2045.

“We’re going to go through the same process we just went through, but we’ll be hiring a consultant to go through to make sure that the zoning as a whole is compliant with our land use plan and the map itself,” City Manager Dana Meeker told commissioners. “The biggest change we have to make right now is how developments are approved.” 

Much of the early discussion by planning commissioners on Tuesday night, however, touched on more contentious, policy-level issues with zoning. State-mandated 60-foot building height requirements rose to the forefront of discussion again following the matter coming under scrutiny at previous city council meetings about the growth policy.

A March 27 letter from Sen. Ellie Boldman, D-Missoula, asserted the city’s growth policy draft circumvented state guidelines restricting exclusionary zoning practices and inserted conditions that make it more difficult for developers to build 60-foot buildings “by right” in certain zones of the city. Boldman stated she would testify against the city should it be sued over the matter. 

Perturbed by what many city councilors deemed as an overstep, the council reluctantly removed the language in question pertaining to the 60-foot building requirements before adding it back to the document ahead of its final approval. Some councilors expressed that protecting the downtown from the height requirement may be “a hill to die on” for the city.

As expected, the matter appeared again in the proposed zoning regulations, with language pertaining to the requirement being added to the maximum height allowed for development in the secondary business district (WB-2), general business district (WB-3) and general resort business (WRB-2): “35 feet, or 60 feet for entirely multi-family residential buildings used for residential purposes as well as for mixed-use buildings when any floor above the ground floor is used entirely for multi-family residential used for residential purposes.”

Commissioner Phil Boland motioned to strike the language relating to the 60-foot maximum height requirement, with Chair Whitney Beckham voicing support for the edit.

“This interim period is a time where things will happen that we need to be very cautious about where and why and how,” Beckham said. “So if October 1 is the day by which we have to have this right, then I don’t support this being in the document now …”

Taylor said the 60-foot building height requirement needed to be addressed now in order to meet the deadline, adding it would likely be better to have some language on the matter as opposed to leaving it up to interpretation by the time Oct. 1 rolls around. 

“This only applies to fully residential buildings, which would be multi-family and ground floor mixed-use with multi-family above,” Taylor said. “Whether or not anyone will want one of those types of buildings with that height, who knows? Over time some of those might come into play, but I don’t think anybody’s scrambling. It cost a lot more money to build over a certain height …”

Meeker also added that while the commission will give its recommendation, the decision ultimately will fall to the city council, which hasn’t given direction yet on how to proceed.

“Their options are accept it or go to litigation, is how I imagine where we’re going,” Meeker said “I don’t think we’ll win a lawsuit at all for this bill. It’s not one of the bills that went through some weird public noticing process that you could maybe get them on procedure. That’s the only way, really, that you’re going to get them to revert this law.”

Councilor Andy Feury chimed in, saying the council will likely focus its efforts on protecting the downtown core and the WB-3 zone. Ultimately, the council may just have to find a way to mitigate the impact of the maximum height requirement, he said. 

“As much as I hate [60-foot buildings] and I don’t like the fact that they’re getting shoved down our throats, we are in a position where we need to comply with state law,” Feury said. “I don’t like the law, but it doesn’t mean that I can just disregard it.”

Commissioners decided to keep the 60-foot language in the zoning code, but made a minor change so ground floor mixed-use buildings have to have residential on “all” other floors, as opposed to “any” other floor of the building in order to achieve 60-foot height status. 

The commission continued with discussion, making minor edits before unanimously approving both the proposed zoning and subdivision regulations. The city council will now review the new set of regulations at its meeting on May 18. If passed after two public hearings, the regulations will take effect July 1.

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