Polson planners reject zone change for Wal-Mart

Special to the Inter Lake

POLSON - Wal-Mart 2, opponents 1.

After hours of public input Tuesday night, the city/county Planning Board voted in favor of two of the three items before it - the special-use permit and the request for subdivision approval - but against the request for a zone change after listening to residents about how it would alter the character of the proposed site.

The proposed site south of Polson is zoned residential, but Wal-Mart needs a commercial designation to build there.

The special-use permit was the only item of the three that the Planning Board could approve, and the other two are recommendations that will be made to the Polson City Council. The board's recommendation is just that - an opinion that the City Council will consider but doesn't have to accept.

Perhaps the biggest question - whether to annex the site into the city limits - was not under consideration Tuesday and is at the sole discretion of the City Council.

But the special-use permit, subdivision and zoning request are dependent on one another, said Bob Fulton, Planning Board chairman.

The board accepted the special-use permit request on the condition that Wal-Mart goes back to the drawing board and designs a building that would better reflect its rural surroundings.

"It is just ugly," board member Rolf Harmsen said.

Christine Ayers, who is representing CLC, a Denver-based consulting company that is helping Wal-Mart officials navigate the application process, said Wal-Mart has about a dozen prototypes they'd be willing to show the board. She said that the proposed supercenter is a combination of those prototypes - taking aspects from each one - and that it would be a unique design for Polson. Ayers then suggested a "Mountain Wal-Mart" that would use a lot of timber and stone in its design.

That condition was attached to 42 other conditions by which Wal-Mart must abide to build the store.

Wal-Mart's subdivision request was accepted with little opposition among board members, though one had a condition placed that Wal-Mart landscape with non-animal-attracting vegetation to prevent animals from crossing the highway to graze on the property.

But zoning split the board, 6-2. Several members said they had considered what some had said about zoning during a public hearing. A number of people expressed concern about Polson's rural character and how a supercenter could be a blight on the landscape.

The Planning Board will make its recommendations to the Polson City Council during a meeting in June.

Tuesday's public hearing began at 6 p.m. and ended just minutes after midnight. After more than two hours of formal application presentations, during which City Council and Planning Board members reviewed inch-thick documents submitted by Wal-Mart, and after more than three hours of public comment, the board finally got down to decision making.

Fulton said the proposal was going to be controversial and he expected things to get emotional at times - and they did.

"One half will think that what we decide is terrible, while the other half will think the opposite," Fulton said. But the applause from those who were there until the bitter end indicated they were in favor of the board's decision to vote against the zoning request.

Ultimately, the fate of the proposed supercenter still largely rests with the City Council, which can accept or reject the Planning Board's recommendations.