Growth policy faces public scrutiny this week

Hearings ahead Tuesday, Thursday on draft plan

The Flathead County Planning Board will hold two public hearings this week on the draft growth policy.

The hearings are Tuesday and Thursday at the Red Lion Hotel Kalispell (at Kalispell Center Mall). Both sessions begin at 6 p.m.

The draft was released for public review June 30. Since then, almost 200 people and organizations have submitted written comments about the 154-page document.

Following this week's meetings, Assistant Planning Director BJ Grieve will compile a report listing issues, concerns and suggestions raised through the public review process. The report will include responses to each of the items and recommendations for possible changes that could address them.

Grieve took time last week to answer questions about the growth policy and how it was developed:

Q: What is the growth policy?

A: "The best analogy I can come up with is that it's like a constitution for growth," Grieve said. Just as a constitution provides a foundation for subsequent laws and regulations, the growth policy "lays a foundation for growth planning in the Flathead, so we can accommodate and promote reasonable growth. All future land-use planning efforts would refer back to this document for guidance. That's why it's so important."

Q: How will it actually be used to guide growth?

A: The policy itself isn't won't dictate what developers have to do with their projects, Grieve said, any more than a constitution dictates how fast people can drive on local highways.

Rather, it would be used to create specific land-use regulations - the laws, rules and standards that do tell developers and landowners what they can or can't do.

"It's a tiered process," Grieve said. "The growth policy acts as a reference document for all future regulatory efforts. It's a visionary statement about what people want the county to be like."

Without that vision, without some concept of what the valley should look like in the future, there's little basis for any regulations.

However, if the growth policy reflects the community's vision - if it identifies the qualities people would like to preserve and the changes people would like to avoid - then it provides a foundation for the zoning and subdivision regulations and other techniques that will be used to implement the public's wishes.

In short, it's really the regulations that are guided by the growth policy, rather than specific development proposals.

"Without a growth policy, we're missing the underlying guidance of the public vision," Grieve said.

Q: Why are we dealing with this now?

A: By state law, local governments must adopt growth policies by Oct. 1.

Even if there were no deadline, though, "the rate and increasing impacts of growth in the Flathead need to be addressed," Grieve said. "Growth is affecting the infrastructure and character of the valley. Some of the impacts are positive, some are negative. By going through this process, the community can decide what's good and promote it, and decide what's bad and mitigate it."

Q: What happens if the deadline isn't met?

A: "The world doesn't end," Grieve said. "But in my opinion, without that foundation, it sets up a legally tenuous situation for growth management in Flathead County. Developers who have their projects denied could sue, and people opposed to a project that's approved could sue."

Q: How was the draft policy created?

A: The draft, together with the 48 goals and more than 200 policies it contains, was written by the Flathead County Planning Office staff, Grieve said. The baseline analysis in the appendix was written largely by the Long-Range Planning Task Force and by the Natural Resource Committee.

The goals and policies are based on public comments received since initial work on the document began in 2002.

Over the last year, the planning office has held dozens of public meetings, workshops and open houses in an effort to identify the major problems associated with growth, as well as the characteristics that people want to preserve in the future and what they'd like to see changed.

"Once we understood the problems and identified the vision for the future, we wrote the goals and policies to try and guide the valley towards that vision," Grieve said.

Q: Give a specific example of how this was done.

A: The fourth goal listed in the growth policy is to "preserve and protect the right to farm, as well as the custom, culture, environmental benefits and character of agriculture in Flathead County, while allowing existing landowners flexibility of land uses."

During several meetings earlier this year, Grieve said, "we heard from many people who said one of the things they like most about the Flathead is agriculture - the open space, hay bales, crops, seasons, the rural character. They loved harvest time and spring planting.

"At the same time, we heard from a number of farmers who had a problem with people telling them they had to farm. They were frustrated with the prices they were getting, with taxes. They didn't like weeds blowing in from the subdivision next door. They didn't like neighbors complaining about the smell or fertilizer. A lot of them want to continue farming and want to protect the right to farm, but they also want the flexibility to sell off an acre or two in a bad year."

The planning staff tried to come up with language that would address both the desire to preserve agriculture and the valley's rural character, as well as the need for farmers to have options for managing their assets.

The nine policies that support Goal 4 suggest using transferable development rights, conservation purchases and other financial incentives as a way to encourage landowners to maintain open space. They also recommend density guidelines and innovative subdivision designs to help preserve the character of rural neighborhoods.

Grieve readily admitted that Goal 4 - as well as the rest of the draft policy - could be refined and improved. The whole point of this week's public hearings is to give people the opportunity to say how it could be improved.

"That's what we want," he said. "But we aren't looking to make wholesale changes so the growth policy benefits one group versus another. We tried to find a reasonable middle ground that still provides some guidance for the future.

"I think that's why some people perceive this draft as being too watered-down or too stringent. They're only looking at it from their perspective, and don't hear the comments we're getting from the other side."

Q: How were you able to balance all these competing viewpoints - as well as your own opinions about how to handle growth - and make sure the draft didn't lean too far one way or another?

A: "We used a number of mechanisms to solicit input," Grieve said. "That constant immersion in public opinion is what kept us in check. We didn't write it in a bubble. We were constantly reminded what works and what doesn't work."

A good growth plan also takes into account the character and culture of the people it's planning for, he said. Consequently, a lot of the "fantasy planning techniques" used in Oregon, Colorado or other locations are unsuitable in the Flathead, so they weren't included in the draft.

Q: You and others have frequently reminded people that the growth policy isn't regulatory, but won't it ultimately result in more restrictions on what people can do with their property?

A: "Yes and no," Grieve said. "The document itself doesn't tell you what you can or can't do with your property, but it does lay the foundation for future [implementation tools] that will have regulatory consequences."

For example, the draft policy calls for a long list of management plans, maps, neighborhood plans and feasibility studies to be developed to help ensure that the goals and objectives contained in the document are actually achieved over time.

"The growth policy has the potential for regulatory impacts because it has to be implemented," Grieve said. "But there are burdens being placed on the public right now because of the growth we're experiencing, and that can't be addressed with no regulation. Growth isn't going to mitigate itself."

Q: Despite efforts to encourage public input, only a small fraction of county residents have chosen to participate. An even smaller fraction have actually read the draft policy. So can it really be described as the "community's vision" for the future?

A: "In the 2000 presidential election, voter turnout was 55 percent," Grieve said. "The people who chose to participate in the initial growth policy meetings had a variety of perspectives and they're representative of those who didn't participate. We don't need 100-percent participation to hear all the perspectives.

"If hundreds of people show up at Tuesday's hearing, and they all took the time to read the draft and educate themselves, and they offer good, thoughtful reasons for opposing it, then let's start over. We work for the public. If enough people say we didn't get it right, then let's forget it and start over.

"But I don't think that will be the case. Given all the constraints we faced - the lack of time and lack of resources - I think we did a reasonable job creating a document that reflects the desires of most residents in Flathead County.

"And now we're trying to refine it and make it better. So if you hear something that doesn't sound quite right, call us. We went through great effort to make this a reasonable document, so if you hear something that sounds unreasonable, it probably is. Call us and ask - 751-8200."

On the Web:

Copies of the draft growth policy are available at all Flathead County Library branches. They can also be reviewed or downloaded from the planning office Web site, at www.co.flathead.mt.us/fcpz/growthpolicy.html

Reporter Bill Spence may be reached at 758-4459 or by e-mail at bspence@dailyinterlake.com