Road concerns or delaying tactics?

The project formerly known as Glacier Mall has been transformed into Glacier Town Center, a mix of commercial and residential uses on 485 acres north of West Reserve Drive.

It took developer Bucky Wolford seven years to get to this point, and he had to settle or win a number of lawsuits and satisfy a number of public officials to do so. All along, he has been dedicated to his vision of serving an unmet need in the Flathead - namely bringing a retail variety to the region that matched its population and economy.

He has played by the rules and worked diligently to satisfy numerous conflicting interests, but now finally he has his planned unit development in front of the Kalispell Planning Board and wants to begin work on Phase 1 as soon as possible.

So far, there have been relatively few objections to the project as it is now configured. That makes sense, since the area where it is located has been targeted as a growth area in the new Kalispell growth plan, but it appears that an attempt is under way to use the draft Kalispell Transportation Plan as a last-ditch effort to scuttle the project.

Members of the Planning Board argued at the Nov. 27 meeting that Wolford's request for three access points on U.S. 93, including two with traffic signals, could be a "crucial sticking point," as board president Bryan Schutt said.

It certainly shouldn't be. The Montana Department of Transportation has already accepted the plan. The planning board's idea of building $5 million "junior interchanges" at the intersections rather than installing lights is way too costly to be realistic, and as the Department of Transportation says in a letter of Nov. 28, "we do not believe it is appropriate to require [the] developer to design and build such improvements."

Instead, the Department of Transportation said that the proposed traffic lights are an acceptable solution to the issues of safety and mobility raised by the increased traffic that is anticipated from Reserve to the newly extended Rose Crossing.

The city planning staff, meanwhile, is asking for seven access roads coming south off of Rose Crossing to enter the mall. This too seems excessive. Wolford had proposed four access roads, which should be more than adequate for the small stretch of road, and the community group North 93 Neighbors agrees. Don't forget that Wolford has already offered to make a kind of "green belt" setback on Rose Crossing, and these roads would just interfere with the intention of creating a buffer zone.

Another troubling proposal comes from the aforementioned North 93 Neighbors. That group wants an access road built from Whitefish Stage Road to a 5-acre lot that Wolford is donating for a community facility of some sort. That is unnecessary, as there is no plan anywhere on the horizon to build such a facility, and it makes more sense to use already planned roads to access the site rather than to punch another one through. We don't need more roads; we need more common sense.

Wolford has time and again proven himself to be a straight shooter who wants to bring a quality project to Kalispell. Indeed, if he could have built his originally proposed mall on the current location five years ago, we would have all been better off. In the intervening years, much growth has occurred along U.S. 93 which didn't receive even a fraction of the scrutiny of Wolford's "Town Center." Why single out Bucky?

The lawsuits and "smart growth" advocates have just led us down a long road of unintended consequences that have not slowed growth at all. Now, it is time to stop putting roadblocks in front of Wolford, and start working with him, not against him.