Planners preserve farm zoning

The Daily Inter Lake

A request to change the zoning on 36.5 acres of farmland southeast of Whitefish died on a split vote of the Whitefish City-County Planning Board on Thursday.

Scott Ping wanted to switch the zoning from 20-acre agricultural tracts to 10-acre suburban agricultural lots on land along Monegan Road.

A 4-4 vote died for lack of a tie-breaker.

The four opposed to Ping's request maintained zoning should continue to follow what's designated in the master plan, board chairman Nick Palmer said.

"We thought it ought to be honored as important farmland," he said.

Palmer, Scott Sorensen, Lisa Horowitz and Martin McGrew voted against the zone change. Kerry Crittenden, Ole Netteberg, Dan Henrick and Dennis Bee favored the change; John Wagner abstained from voting.

Ping said the soil isn't adequate for farming and he wanted the zone change to put land in trust for his daughter, Palmer said.

In other business, planners OK'd a planned-unit development creating eight townhouse lots, eight condominium units and 16 mixed-use condominiums on the northwest corner of Baker Avenue and West 10th Street. As part of that project, a home known as "The Castle" will be used as an office.

Billmayer Engineering, representing North Valley Hospital, got the go-ahead to create 10 professional office lots on nearly four acres at the south entrance of the proposed new hospital campus south of Whitefish.