Resort plan offers realistic vision
The lack of controversy and criticism at last week's public hearing for Big Mountain's 20-year master plan speaks volumes for the collaborative effort that went into the planning process.
After earlier plans for a massive hotel and conference center were turned down by the Whitefish City-County Planning Board, resort operator Winter Sports regrouped with a skilled design team and spent several months refining its 1992 master plan through a series of meetings with the public, homeowners associations and several civic groups.
Big Mountain asked for advice and got plenty of it.
Hundreds of people perused the master plan before it went before the planning board. What emerged from this very public process is a plan that aims to keep the development of the village area on a smaller scale by breaking up hotel accommodations into about 10 buildings. It's much more modest than the $300 million resort makeover proposed by international resort corporation Hines, which had a short-lived relationship with Big Mountain a couple of years ago.
Winter Sports Chief Executive Officer Fred Jones deserves a pat on the back for taking to heart the concerns of skiers, mountain residents and locals. From the loop road that will direct traffic through the resort and away from neighborhoods to the open space preserved in the Haskill Basin drainage area, the master plan seems to make a lot of sense.
Sure, there are elements that need to be tweaked. That's why the planning board postponed a decision on the plan until May 18. The biggest concern seems to be the preservation of ski in/ski out access that homeowners were promised when they bought their resort properties.
None of the issues seem insurmountable. Even those who showed up at the public hearing to question specific elements of the plan admitted that, overall, the document is well-crafted to carry the resort into the future.
Big Mountain is one of the crown jewels of the Flathead Valley, and how development proceeds at the destination resort is important not only to skiers and condominium owners but also to a wide array of businesses that benefit from having a ski resort in their back yard.
We've heard over and over again that most people don't want Big Mountain to become another Vail or Aspen. Those Colorado resorts have come to epitomize the glitz and exclusiveness of ski areas that cater to the rich and famous.
We realize that change is inevitable for Big Mountain. It has to grow and improve to remain competitive, but there's a sentiment that the resort should continue to reflect a more down-to-earth Montana lifestyle.
Jones and his team have a vision of how to accomplish that growth with smaller-scale buildings and plans that largely preserve the ski slopes. That's a plan we can live with.