Whitefish continues stormwater law review

The Daily Inter Lake

The Whitefish City-County Planning Board continues its review of a proposed stormwater law on Thursday.

A work session begins at 5:30 p.m. at Whitefish City Hall to discuss an ordinance that would provide protection for critical stormwater drainage areas and establish protection zones in certain environmentally sensitive areas.

It also would require wet-season groundwater monitoring and a groundwater study in designated areas.

While the session is primarily a discussion among Planning Board members, a 15- to 20-minute public-comment period will be included. Board members may ask questions of people in the audience, but no formal presentations by the public or staff will be made, according to the Whitefish Planning and Building Office.

A public hearing for the stormwater law was opened on Dec. 21 and continued to the Feb. 15 Planning Board meeting to give the board time to digest two contrasting drafts of the law.

The most controversial part of the proposed law has been protection zones, including a prohibition on development where slopes exceed 30 percent.

The stormwater law has bounced back and forth from the Planning Board to the Whitefish City Council in recent months.

The Planning Board rejected the initial proposal largely because of the slope restriction. The City Council took public comment on the proposal in November and after several amendments were added at the request of developers, the council sent it back to the planning board.

The proposal is now in its fourth draft.

Since the first two proposals essentially have been scrapped, the board is weighing the merits of the third draft - that supports a number of stricter setbacks for streams - and the fourth proposal, which was drafted by a committee of developers, real-estate agents, civil engineers and a lawyer.