Subdivision north of Montana 40 up for review
A proposal for a 24-acre subdivision west of the U.S. 2 and Montana 40 junction will get its first public hearing before the Columbia Falls Planning Board Tuesday night.
Rita Dowler is joining with Ski Construction, LLC, the business run by Bill Drososki, to ask preliminary plat approval for Lookout Estates. Most of its proposed 27 single-family home lots are about a half-acre. The subdivision is being proposed along the north side of Montana 40, at the top of a wooded ridge about a half-mile west of the junction with U.S. 2. It lies on the eastern border of the existing Nichols Acres Subdivision.
Its primary access would be off Montana 40, by way of a frontage road that connects to the north-south Hidden Meadow Lane serving Nichols Acres. A secondary access to the north would be Braig Lane, which crosses One Way Road and feeds onto Braig Road.
An internal looped road system reaches all lots.
The Montana Department of Transportation approves of the plan, but wants to end its responsibility for road maintenance if Lookout Estates wins plat approval.
Dowler and Drososki propose dedicating the steep wooded land as community green space, with two smaller open spaces tucked in at the northeast and southeast ends. Dowler owns more land below the ridge to the east.
The Columbia Falls growth policy projected this land as suitable for suburban residential housing, allowing development on parcels of a half-acre or more. A community well and individual septic systems are proposed.
The Flathead County Public Health Department said odd configurations of two of the lots almost certainly will present problems in fitting both a home and drain field on the lot. The rest are fine, a sanitarian said.
Flathead County Solid Waste District is asking the city to require garbage pick-up by Glacier Disposal, the certified hauler for this area, in order to relieve future burdens on the county green-box site a couple miles east. It is the county's busiest site.
Neither groundwater nor aquifer problems are anticipated, but groundwater testing is recommended as a precaution.
The Columbia Falls Fire Department is asking for a water supply system to use in fire suppression. As an option, fire sprinklers could be recommended for each home.
Lookout Estates will be the final public hearing of the night.
First on the agenda will be the continuation of a public hearing on proposed zoning text amendments that, among other things, will establish design standards for large commercial buildings.
The standards were discussed in detail at last month's planning board meeting.
But concerns over tightening up language to be clear and concise, whether to allow a master conditional-use permit for power center developments, and questions about the legality of incorporating a specific developer's requests into the document were raised.
Information from committee meetings over the past month and advice from the city attorney will play into tonight's discussion.
The text amendments also will address storage containers and exterior lighting in all zones, replacing non-conforming trailer houses only with similar ones in zones other than mobile home parks, and other housekeeping matters.
In other public hearings, the board will address:
. A request from Ronald and Dawn Platke to rezone suburban agricultural land on Hellman Lane from 10- acre to five-acre minimum lots. This follows a similar approval last year on land owned by the West family. After that approval, a family transfer was done on five acres and then that five acres was sold to Platke.
. A conditional-use permit request from George Smyth to install a 40-by-100-foot building on his Frontage Road land for enclosing his vehicles and trailers, and the possible future storage of other large vehicles.
The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. in City Hall.
Reporter Nancy Kimball may be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com