Box-store law on Whitefish Council agenda
The Daily Inter Lake
The Whitefish City Council finally gets to vote on the so-called big-box law it has talked about for years.
On Tuesday the council holds a public hearing to consider a proposal to require conditional-use permits for stores bigger than 15,000 square feet. For the past couple of years the council has talked about tighter review of large commercial projects in an effort to preserve Whitefish's small-town character.
The proposed law is aimed not only at big-box stores, but also "category killers" and "lifestyle centers."
Category killers are large retail chain stores such as Petco, Best Buy and Toys R Us that dominate in one type of merchandise and generally offer goods at prices so low that smaller stores cannot compete.
Lifestyle centers sometimes are built to imitate traditional downtown shopping areas.
Just north of Kalispell, a lifestyle center is proposed as the central feature of the Glacier Town Center project. The lifestyle center would be built instead of the enclosed shopping mall that had been planned as Glacier Mall.
A related public hearing for Whitefish deals with a proposal to add bulk, scale, community character and neighborhood compatibility to conditional-use permit criteria.
IN OTHER business, the council will consider an abatement process for its community decay ordinance. In the past, abatement has been ineffective and limited to city limits, City Manager Gary Marks said.
The new law would extend the decay ordinance to Whitefish's entire planning jurisdiction and more clearly define the process for contacting and dealing with property owners.
The council will discuss a proposal from The Lodge at Whitefish Lake to amend city law to allow live poker through special-events permits. Related discussions will focus on revamping the city's special-events permit process to more clearly delineate which types of community events need a permit, and revising the temporary vendor permit process.
Parking-project options for the northwest corner of Second Street and Spokane Avenue will be revisited. Marks hopes the council will find consensus on one of three parking proposals.
The council holds a work session at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to meet with the weed committee and hear an update on housing from Whitefish Housing Authority Director SueAnn Grogan.
The regular meeting begins at 7:10 p.m.; both meetings are at Whitefish City Hall. The meetings were moved to Tuesday because of today's Presidents Day holiday.