Annexation near for major project

Starling would have 3,000 homes built out over 20 years

By JOHN STANG

The Daily Inter Lake

The biggest housing development project in Kalispell's history appears likely to be annexed into the city this summer.

However, many questions and some potential tweaking remain.

A partnership of Phoenix-based The Aspen Group and the Grosswiler family - which owns the land - wants to build roughly 3,000 homes on one square mile west of Glacier High School over the next 20 years.

The Aspen Group is requesting that Kalispell annex the site - dubbed "Starling" - with zoning for R-3 single-family housing and a planned unit development agreement. A planned unit development is a type of contract in which the city relaxes some zoning restrictions in return for the developer's promise to install mitigation measures.

Kalispell's City Council might hold a public hearing on the annexation, zoning and planned unit development requests on July 2 or July 16 - depending on how quickly the city staff can answer questions raised at a Monday council workshop session.

After the hearing, the council will vote on the Starling project's requests.

Also sometime in July, the council will discuss and vote on Starling's preliminary plans for the first of possibly 20 phases.

The 63-acre first phase proposes to create 236 lots in Starling's northwest corner nestled at the intersection of West Reserve Drive and Stillwater Road.

Most lots would be for single-family houses, along with seven lots for multiple-family buildings and 32 for nonresidential or commercial use.

Questions and new wrinkles that surfaced Monday included:

• The Aspen Group researching whether it can make condominiums available in the $150,000 to $165,000 range. Previously, the project anticipated its lowest-priced homes ranging from $165,000 to $180,000 range.

This is significant because Flathead housing observers consider $150,000 as the upper limit in homes affordable to households making the median income of $49,000 annually or less.

• Habitat For Humanity and Starling working on setting aside five lots in the first phase for Habitat-sponsored homes for lower-income families.

• Several northern neighbors contending that the council should send Starling's plans back to the Kalispell Planning Board to handle several questions - arguing many details have not been adequately studied and delaying two months should not hurt the project. Those neighbors appeared Monday ready to accept Starling if more study time is made available and if they could negotiate some changes.

• The same neighbors - who live on lots of one to five acres - asked Starling to move the less-dense parts of Phase One to border their properties along West Reserve Drive and to move Starling's denser neighborhoods away from West Reserve Drive.

• Seven West Valley neighbors of Starling voiced support of the project, as did the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce and five additional West Valley people with ties to Starling or its construction.

For more information, see Wednesday's Daily Inter Lake.