Whitefish industrial land eyed for subdivision
One of the last undeveloped tracts of industrial-zoned land in Whitefish is being considered for a 77-home subdivision, but a master-plan amendment is needed to proceed.
The Whitefish City-County Planning Board gets first crack at Desert Mountain Venture's proposal to develop the 26-acre parcel at the southwest corner of East Edgewood Drive and Second Street. The plan is scheduled for a public hearing Aug. 18.
The development company is asking for a master-plan amendment and zone change from industrial to urban residential, planned-unit development and preliminary plat approval.
"It's not going to be an easy one," Whitefish Planning Director Bob Horne predicted. "I anticipate a lot of discussion by the planning board."
The project could be perceived as piecemeal zoning, he added.
The property in question has had a long and somewhat arduous past.
Originally the site of a post mill, the land was converted to a tree farm years ago, and the property remains overgrown with trees. It's bordered by the railroad tracks on the southern edge, a key reason the property was originally zoned industrial.
Two years ago, Timberland Construction got approval to build a 37-lot industrial park, but the city put controls on noise, lighting and permitted uses after an outpouring of neighborhood concern about intrusion and increased traffic. Timberland Construction later went out of business, and the project never got off the ground.
At the time, the City Council agreed that having the developer pay for extending utilities to the site would benefit the city. Public utilities were an issue about eight years ago, when former Mayor Jimmy Welsh and William Haase proposed an industrial park on the site and asked the city to help pay for extending water and sewer lines. At that time, the extension was estimated at $300,000, and the plan was dropped when the council declined to participate in utility extensions.
Traffic has been a primary concern for past proposals on the site. Narrow East Edgewood Drive is popular with bicyclists and joggers, and the other access road, East Second Street, runs through Whitefish's residential east side.
The Planning Board considers another potentially contentious issue during its Aug. 18 meeting, when it hears a request from Whitefish Partners, the developer of the Monterra condominiums, to reverse an earlier decision disallowing weekly rentals of the condominium units. The board and the Whitefish City Council decided short-term rentals of the units would be disruptive to the residential area.
"This is a tough one, too," Horne said.
The planned-unit amendment for the Monterra property, at the corner of Montana 40 and Kallner Lane, would need to be amended to accommodate the developer's request.