Whitefish tweaks planning-overlay tool
The Daily Inter Lake
The Whitefish City-County Planning Board closes out the year Thursday with a full agenda that includes proposed changes to the city's planned-unit development standards.
The planned-unit development is an overlay zone in which the basic standards of the underlying zone apply to the project unless the applicant proposes to vary those standards.
That ability to vary standards such as setbacks and height, or to propose special street designs and streetscapes not found in the city's public-works design manual, is what makes the planning tool attractive to developers and project designers looking to provide something unique, Whitefish Planning Director Bob Horne said.
The flexibility to vary standards, however, has sometimes led to confusion on the part of the public as well as decision-makers.
"Both the staff and planning board have struggled at times with the PUD", Horne said. "The objectives of the overlay are implied but are not clearly spelled out in the code."
While the code says that standards can be varied, it isn't clear what benefits are supposed to be derived from those deviations. Horne characterized the proposed amendments as more clarification than any substantive overhaul.
The board has four other public hearings slated Thursday:
-Casey's Bar owner Richard Kramer wants a conditional-use permit to open a diner south of the bar that will be designed to look like a caboose. The 1,760-square-foot building would seat about 75 people.
-Robert Pero needs a zone change from suburban residential to one-family residential for a proposed four-lot subdivision north of Lion Mountain Road and west of Meadowlark Lane. The lots in Mountain Pines Phase II would range from 10,000 to 13,594 square feet.
-Discussion continues on the Boardwalk at Whitefish Lake. A decision on the planned-unit development for the project was tabled Nov. 17 due an exceptionally long public hearing. Because the applicants submitted new material just before the Nov. 17 meeting and the public didn't have ample time to testify then, the public hearing was readvertised.
The planning board will take public testimony on Thursday, but the Boardwalk developers have requested the hearing be continued on Jan. 19, with a subsequent hearing before the Whitefish City Council on Feb. 6.
-The city of Whitefish wants to amend the architectural design review standards to require design review for two-, three- and four-family residential structures and for single-family houses in any commercial zoning district.
The meeting begins at 7 p.m. Thursday at Whitefish City Hall.