Lawsuits not best plan for success
There are three major steps for development in Flathead County: Most planning requests go to the planning office, then the planning board, then the county commissioners.
Recent history shows a fourth step has been added: the courts.
In the past two years, Flathead County has been sued 18 times, by 15 different groups or individuals, in disputes over land-use decisions.
Litigation has become the weapon of choice for people seeking to slow down, obstruct, guide, improve or modify what they see as an epidemic of commercial and residential growth in the valley.
The fundamental proposition being tested by many of these lawsuits isn't whether or not specific land-use decisions were illegal. Most of them are straightforward and according to the letter of the law.
But opponents of particular developments, or in some cases opponents of growth itself, are essentially making the argument that the county's entire planning process is illegal, because it fails to properly balance public and private rights.
That is an interesting theory, but it has a high burden to meet to have any practical impact. Namely, there has to be some proof that the public's interest outweighs the traditional, legal and logical meaning of private property rights. The public, especially in the form of a single litigant, should not just have the option of imposing its will on private property owners without some superior public interest being demonstrated.
But the reality of the planning process in the Flathead is that there's a 30 percent chance of legal action if a particular planning application is even mildly controversial. And with today's court system, there is no guarantee that a single complaint won't upset the apple cart for hundreds or thousands of property owners.
We know there are lots of pressures on the Flathead Valley today. The commissioners have opened up more than 10,000 acres of land to higher-density development with recent votes. And most of us value the quality of life we have now. We don't want to lose it.
But we should be realistic about how much good can be accomplished in the form of a lawsuit.
As much as it's nice that our planning process is a business builder for the legal profession, perhaps there's an alternative to litigation.
That alternative might be the current process of revising the county's growth policy.
Maybe - just maybe - people will be able to save their legal fees if they get involved and help craft pieces of the growth policy now being put together. The process of involvement now will ensure that the public's interest will be heard up front, and measured against existing rights and responsibilities.
As retired developer Jerry Nix summed it up:
"The sooner we realize we're all in this together, the sooner we can start talking about how to get quality growth. That will be the key to the valley's success."