Growth-plan procedure extended

The Daily Inter Lake

Due to a late surge in written comments, the schedule for revising and adopting Flathead County's draft growth policy has been bumped back by about a week.

As of Thursday morning, only about 50 letters and e-mail comments had been received since the Flathead County Planning Board unanimously recommended approval of the growth policy on Dec. 11.

However, the planning staff indicated that another 50 or so letters came in on Thursday afternoon before the 5 p.m. deadline for written comment.

Given that Monday is a county holiday, the staff asked for a few more days to review and summarize the letters.

The revised schedule - which could still be changed - calls for the comments and a written summary to be presented to the commissioners on Thursday at 9:30 a.m.

The commissioners then will discuss the changes they want to make to the growth policy on Jan. 23 from 1-4 p.m., five days later than originally scheduled.

Consideration of the resolution of intent will be bumped from Jan. 22 to Jan. 31 at 10 a.m.

If the resolution is approved, it will be followed by a 30-day written comment period. Assuming the revised schedule doesn't change again, that means the commissioners won't be able to take final action on the growth policy until early March.

A temporary moratorium on zone changes will remain in effect until the growth policy is formally adopted.