Whitefish could soften paving rules
A blanket requirement to pave all driveways within Whitefish city limits may be ditched in coming months to allow less expensive dust-control options.
In the course of learning about the county's proposed revisions to air-quality regulations and how they'll affect Whitefish, the City Council on Monday broached the subject of paving regulations for driveways.
"There's an issue that we're too strict," Whitefish Planning Director Bob Horne told the council. "If dust is the problem, maybe we need to tailor the regulations to dust."
County health administrator Joe Russell agreed with Horne, acknowledging that "what you're doing is more strict than [county] regulations."
He suggested other options, such as paving only 25 feet of a driveway approach as it meets the roadway or annually applying magnesium or calcium chloride, common chemical dust deterrents used on county roads.
The council also discussed the possibility of allowing residents to tap into the city's stockpile of milled asphalt. As old asphalt is removed from city streets, it's stored at the city-shop area and has been milled for use on city alleys, Public Works Director John Wilson said. Now that all of Whitefish's alleys have been paved, the city has little use for the excess.
Horne said he plans to draft the paving revisions within the next couple of months for the council's consideration.
Whitefish's strict paving rules pose a financial hardship to residents in some cases.
The policy for existing homes with unpaved driveways inside city limits is to require driveway paving with the issuance of a building permit.
In Gerlinde Oliver's case, that requirement could add more than $12,000 to her planned building project, which involves converting an existing garage on her Texas Avenue property into an accessory apartment. Construction of the apartment would trigger the paving requirement and force her to pave a 350- to 400-foot circular driveway.
"It doesn't make sense to burden people in this way," Oliver said.
Wilson gave another example of a homeowner who needs a building permit to upgrade a basement window at a cost of about $1,000. The building permit activates the paving requirement, adding another $5,000 to the project and making it cost-prohibitive to the homeowner.
"In this case, the homeowner does not have an extra $5,000 and will postpone the window project indefinitely, leaving the basement bedroom in a relatively unsafe condition," Wilson said.
IN THE BROAD scope of regulating air quality, it's logical to use the newly formed Whitefish planning boundaries 2 miles beyond city limits, Russell said.
"I do have concerns with growth. That's why we want larger control areas," he said.
An air-quality control district for Whitefish was established in 1993 after the city fell out of compliance with government-imposed standards.
"I was always concerned about Whitefish," Russell said. "We brought Columbia Falls' and Kalispell's recipe [for air quality regulations] here, but Whitefish has other factors to deal with. Diesel and open burning were other problems for Whitefish."
The council mulled the idea of a program for wood-burning stoves in which homeowners would install more efficient stoves with fewer emissions.
"The city has some self-governing authority" for establishing regulations for wood-stove change-outs, Russell said.
Council member Velvet Phillips-Sullivan said she though a change-out program has merit, especially since more people could be forced to burn wood as natural-gas prices skyrocket.
Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com