Planning Board fails to approve Riverdale plan

Proposal goes to county commissioners without a recommendation

The 3,800-acre Riverdale Neighborhood Plan earned a split decision Wednesday from the Flathead County Planning Board.

After a two-hour, standing-room-only workshop, a motion to recommend approval of the proposal failed on a 3-3 vote.

The plan goes to the county commissioners without a recommendation.

If approved, Riverdale would change the land-use designation from agricultural to residential and commercial on a large block of farmland along the west side of U.S. 93, between Big Mountain Golf Club and the county landfill.

Wednesday's meeting was a follow-up to a formal public hearing on the proposal, which took place in March. No additional public comment was accepted during the workshop; the board only had a handful of questions for the applicants or the planning staff.

Much of the discussion focused on the commercial designation.

The Riverdale plan featured 320 acres of mixed-use commercial, most of it along the highway frontage. Some board members thought this would turn the corridor into a commercial strip; others thought this was a good location for businesses.

"I'm not ready to embrace commercial all along the highway," Kim Fleming said. "If we recommend this plan, I believe there will be an immediate rush to get commercial zoning along the highway and we may never see the [residential portions] of the plan come through."

During the March hearing, Mayre Flowers with Citizens for a Better Flathead indicated that Riverdale was proposing more commercial acreage than there is in Columbia Falls or Whitefish, and almost as much as there is within the Kalispell city limits.

Board member Kathy Robertson said that the 1987 county growth policy recommends that commercial uses be concentrated within the three cities, and that a commercial strip along U.S. 93 be discouraged.

Consequently, Robertson thought Riverdale was inconsistent with the current growth policy, and she questioned whether it would be consistent with the new growth policy, which should be completed this fall.

"I can't look at this huge proposal and tell if it's going to be consistent with the new policy," she said. "It also calls for a density of four units per acre in one of the residential areas. That's urban density, and I feel strongly that this isn't an urban area."

However, Planning Director Jeff Harris suggested that Riverdale's central location might make it appropriate for some types of commercial development.

"It's the heart of the valley," Harris said. "There isn't a better place for regional commercial uses."

He also said that Kalispell has expressed interest in possibly extending sewer and water infrastructure out to Church Drive, which bisects the Riverdale property, and that the city's tentative concept for the area calls for "some fairly intensive residential development along the highway," rather than commercial development.

"So the board might want to weigh the intensity of the potential uses," Harris said.

Board member Gene Dziza said he wasn't sure where opponents of the Riverdale plan want commercial development to take place.

"It seems like that stretch of highway has been sacred forever," Dziza said. "People don't want to see commercial there - but they also don't want to see it behind Semitool, in Bucky Wolford's [Glacier Mall] project. What I'm hearing is, they don't want commercial."

Given that Kalispell's sewer lines are being extended more than two miles south of town to the Old School Station industrial park across from Rocky Cliff Drive, Dziza thought it was only a matter of time before municipal service was extended north to Riverdale.

"It's 1.8 miles from Reserve Drive to the south end of this proposal," he said. "Sewer is going to go there with or without Riverdale."

Dziza also suggested that without some type of overall plan, development in the area would proceed on a much more haphazard basis.

"I would bet that any of these landowners could sell their land at any time," he said. "We'd end up with all sorts of subdivision requests, and one wouldn't be consistent the next. I think this is a good plan."

When the proposal came to a vote, Dziza and board members Randy Toavs and Charles Lapp recommended approval. Fleming, Robertson and board member Don Hines - all three of whom are running for county commissioner - voted in opposition.

Board members Gordon Cross and Frank deKort were absent, and Jeff Larsen recused himself.

The plan now goes to the county commissioners, who earlier this week tabled action on a second major neighborhood plan in the Somers area until after a new growth policy is completed.

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