Growth policy work is picking up steam

by WILLIAM L. SPENCE The Daily Inter Lake
| May 17, 2005 1:00 AM

Despite limited public input, progress seems to be picking up on the update of Flathead County's 18-year-old growth policy.

The policy is intended to outline land-use planning goals and objectives that will help the community achieve its vision of what the valley should look like in the future. The document will also provide a foundation for the county's zoning and subdivision regulations.

Work on the update temporarily stalled last fall. However, the Flathead County Planning Board and newly created Long-Range Planning Task Force are involved in a multi-pronged approach that's intended to finish the job by the statutory deadline of Oct. 1, 2006.

A set of recommendations will also be available soon from two consultants who were hired to help focus the update.

Details regarding the status of these activities:

-Planning board - The planning board will hold the first in a series of weekly growth policy workshops on Monday at 6 p.m. in the commissioners' hearing room.

A specific agenda for Monday's meeting isn't available; however, the intent is to resume work on the growth policy update.

Public comment will be accepted at some point during the session. Future workshops are scheduled on June 6, 13, 20 and 27, and will likely continue every Monday into the foreseeable future.

Last week, the board unanimously agreed to send a letter to various county and state departments, formally requesting that they provide information needed to complete the update.

-Long-range task force - After spending the last few months trying to clarify their purpose, the 24 members of the task force recently formed multiple subcommittees. The subcommittees will address long-term needs in a variety of areas, including roads, parkland, sewer and water, emergency services and zoning.

Each subcommittee has its own meeting schedule. The main task force meets on the second Thursday of every month in the second-floor conference room of the Earl Bennett Building. Public comment is taken at the end of each meeting.

-Consultants - Last week, Bill Collins and Lane Kendig participated in a three-day series of meetings to discuss some of the challenges and critical issues that should be addressed by the growth policy.

Following the meetings, which included input from almost 200 invited speakers and members of the public, Kendig offered some initial impressions.

"We tried to identify the issues that were most subject to derailing you," he told the planning board on Wednesday. "We came up with four: Growth management, resource protection, quality of life and affordable housing."

Growth management includes the county's ability to provide the necessary infrastructure and services.

The challenge, Kendig said, is that "you don't seem to have the financial resources to provide these services, and in a number of categories you're falling way behind where you should be."

In an earlier meeting, Kendig suggested that the success or failure of the entire growth policy was tied to this issue.

"If we can't help you figure out how to catch up to where you should be [with roads and other infrastructure needs], then we might as well all go home right now," he said.

Natural resources includes preservation of farmland, preserving or improving water quality, the use and preservation of timberland and protection of wildlife habitat.

"While these are seen as goals of the community, there are no real tools to address them in a predictable manner," Kendig said.

Affordable housing and quality of life were also mentioned over and over during last week's meetings.

All of these issues have multiple facets, and a wide range of strategies are available to address each one, Kendig said. However, the strategies tend to fall into one of three categories.

Fiscal strategies, such as raising property taxes or approving a fuel tax, allow the government to solve problems by paying for the solution, he explained.

Regulatory strategies "generally do something to push growth where it should be, or prevent it from going where it shouldn't," Kendig said.

The third category is the do nothing approach.

A formal report detailing the consultants' recommendations should be available by the end of May. The report is expected to identify what information is still needed to complete the growth policy update, and who is available to do the work.