Proposed law could limit Whitefish store size

The Daily Inter Lake

Big stores may have a tougher time finding a home in Whitefish if the city passes tighter measures proposed by the City Council.

The council wants the ability to review proposals for building footprints larger than 15,000 square feet by requiring a conditional-use permit. Currently, business zoning districts don't limit the size or scale of buildings.

The Whitefish City-County Planning Board gets the first look at the proposed zoning-text amendment at a public hearing Jan. 18. In addition to the 15,000-square-foot requirement, the city wants to revise the criteria for conditional-use permits to include bulk, scale, community character and neighborhood compatibility.

"Historically, commercial structures in Whitefish have been of modest size and have typified the community," Whitefish Planning Director Bob Horne wrote in his staff report.

Some council members are worried that the resort city's traditional small-town character may be at risk not only from 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 are built to imitate traditional downtown shopping areas and can drain energy from genuine downtowns.

"We've batted it around for the last few months, and we've finally made the decision to move forward," Mayor Andy Feury said about the proposal. "We talked to Bozeman and they have a pretty good box-store ordinance."

Bozeman made news in 2002 when the city passed a temporary moratorium on construction of large retail stores. What emerged a year later was a law that sets a base standard of 75,000 square feet for retail stores.

"This is the point at which we determined extra review should happen," said Chris Saunders, assistant planning director for the city of Bozeman.

Bozeman allows developers to work around the 75,000-square-foot benchmark in two ways. They can seek a "deviation" that allows for exceptions based on various criteria, including an exceptional design. Getting an approved deviation can increase the store size to 90,000 square feet. Developers also can complete a planned-unit development and petition for more square footage, Saunders said. Lowe's recently used that option and was granted a 165,000-square-foot facility.

Bozeman city leaders were comfortable with the 75,000-square-foot base size, Saunders added, because the city is considered a regional trade center.

At first glance, Whitefish's proposed 15,000-square-foot building footprint may seem "not terribly large," he said, but "if it's a smaller town, then a smaller size may be more prudent."

Super 1 Foods, one of Whitefish's newest large stores, at 55,000 square feet is nearly four times larger than the proposed size that would trigger a review.

THE WHITEFISH proposal may meet with opposition from the development community.

Whitefish developer Turner Askew, who has worked in real-estate development for decades, said the proposal is "foolish" and an attempt by the city to micromanage development. He pointed out that many homes in the Whitefish area are larger than 15,000 square feet.

"If the intent is to keep out Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart doesn't want to be in Whitefish. That's not their customer base," Askew said.

He cautioned there could be "unintended consequences" from new conditonal-use permit criteria.

Existing criteria cover issues such as site suitability, parking and traffic, open space, fencing, landscaping and impacts on public services. Impact on property values is also addressed, but it's "highly subjective," Whitefish Planning Director Bob Horne said, "even if professional Realtors and appraisers are consulted."

But new criteria, particularly community character and neighborhood compatibility, could also be subjective, Askew maintained.

The Minneapolis-based New Rules Project Institute for Local Self-Reliance looked at dozens of communities that were concerned about the effects of large retail centers on their local economies and found a variety of store-size caps have been imposed to sustain the vitality of existing business districts.

Store-size caps keep out some national retailers that refuse to build outlets smaller than their standard formats, the institute report concluded, but others will opt to comply with a community's size limit by designing smaller stores.

What constitutes an appropriate upper limit for the size of retail stores depends on several factors, including the size of the town, the scale of its existing buildings and its long-term goals for retail development, according to the institute report.

Some communities have banned only the "biggest of the big boxes." Belfast, Maine, (a city of 6,500) caps stores at 75,000 square feet. Others, such as Hailey, Idaho, and Ashland, Ore., have chosen smaller limits (36,000 and 45,000 square feet).

None of the cities included in the institute's study had store caps as small as 15,000 square feet. It notes that Ravalli County in Montana adopted an interim ordinance last April limiting stores to no more than 60,000 square feet while officials work on a permanent ordinance.

Jackson, Wyo., took a similar approach to Whitefish's proposal when Kmart came to town, said Horne, who worked as planning director there. Jackson made structures of more than 30,000 square feet of total floor area subject to a conditional-use permit so that neighborhood and community impacts could be identified and avoided, or at least mitigated.

Columbia Falls also has begun creating standards for large retail centers, but its City Council has taken a more welcoming approach to box stores.

City Manager Bill Shaw told the Planning Board in his report that "over the past several years it has become widely assumed that eventually Columbia Falls will become a place of interest for locating a power center."

Nevertheless, Columbia Falls leaders want to look at regulations for roof lines, wall-surface relief, architectural features and landscaping. The Columbia Falls Planning Board met Tuesday to begin discussion about potential guidelines.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com