Council scraps moratorium idea

Mayor Andy Feury closed the door on a major subdivision moratorium in Whitefish, casting a tie-breaking vote Tuesday in favor of scrapping the idea altogether.

At the Planning Board's request, the Whitefish City Council considered whether to move forward with a public hearing on a moratorium that would have halted applications for subdivisions with more than six units and planned-unit development proposals to give the city planning staff ample time to finish the growth policy by the Oct. 1 deadline.

If Whitefish can't meet the deadline, Feury said the city would be able to cope, even though it would be prohibited from amending the existing 1996 master plan and making major zone changes until the new policy is completed.

"Business will still go on," Feury said. "You'll have some constraints, but the world won't stop."

Planning Director Bob Horne told the council that freeing up staff time to work on the growth policy would result in a more in-depth end product, but agreed with Feury that life would go on if Whitefish misses the deadline.

"It's not like we get sued or all drop dead," he said.

After the meeting, Horne said his department will "farm out bits and pieces" of the project. The city has hired consultant Lisa Horowitz to update the resource-document component of the plan that updates population and economic data for Whitefish.

"Possibly some environmental work can be farmed out, too," Horne said. "There's money to do that as necessary."

Horne said he and his planning staff realized the work load they had ahead of them when the city created the Planning Department a year ago.

"That's what we signed up for. We'll be fine," he said. "We've got a good team."

After hearing from a couple of developers and an attorney opposed to a moratorium, the council discussed the idea at length, then evenly split its decision. Council members Velvet Phillips-Sullivan, Nick Palmer and Nancy Woodruff favored a public hearing to consider a moratorium; Tom Muri, Cris Coughlin and Shirley Jacobson opposed it.

Coughlin said she was concerned about the potential financial ramifications a moratorium could cause, and wanted more information.

"I'm missing some of the meat here, of how it will affect the city long-term," she said.

Developer Doug Skoczek said the mere mention of a moratorium had affected his business dealings because of a public perception that a decision had more or less been made to impose a moratorium.

"Just bringing up the issue is costing me a lot of money," Skoczek said. "It's no different than if you'd put a moratorium on retail business. It's suspending my free right to work in the system you had already laid out. You're penalizing me for Whitefish not having its act together."

The mayor took offense to Skoczek's comments, saying it wasn't a foregone conclusion that there would be a moratorium. He also said that Whitefish did have its act together when it attempted to update its growth policy two years ago, but the county commissioners didn't approve the update.

Council member Tom Muri, however, said he understood Skoczek's dilemma.

"Even to put this on the agenda sends a strong message that there will be a moratorium," Muri maintained.

Muri added that he was worried a moratorium could push growth outside of Whitefish's planning jurisdiction.

"In doing such, we lose the decision-making for such subdivisions and PUDs, and then the community of Whitefish has to live with such growth without having any say in such growth," he said.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.