Massive home project gets board OK
The Kalispell Planning Board gave thumbs up Tuesday to the potentially 3,000-home Starling project despite protests from neighbors that the review process is going too fast for adequate public input.
By JOHN STANG
The Daily Inter Lake
The Kalispell Planning Board gave thumbs up Tuesday to the potentially 3,000-home Starling project despite protests from neighbors that the review process is going too fast for adequate public input.
The board is recommending that the one-square-mile project be granted an R-3 single-house residential zone with modifications for some multi-family buildings and neighborhood commercial sites when the developer - The Aspen Group of Phoenix - seeks annexation into Kalispell. An R-3 designation puts the minimum lot size for a house at 7,000 square feet.
That annexation request is tentatively expected to go to Kalispell's City Council on June 18.
The board also recommended Tuesday that the council approve preliminary plans for the Starling project's first phase. That phase would cover the northeast 63.5 acres of the 640-acre site, nestling against the intersection of Stillwater Road and West Reserve Drive.
The first phase is supposed to have 131 single-family houses, 98 townhouses and seven multiple-family buildings that would hold 64 homes.
The Starling project - named after the late matriarch of the Grosswiler family that owns the land - is expected to be developed in 15 phases over 20 years. Starling is located west of Glacier High School.
The Aspen Group estimates that it eventually will be the home of 6,000 to 8,000 people (Kalispell currently has 20,000 people).
The Planning Board supported the project 5-0. Board members Rich Hull and Butch Clark were absent.
However, at least a half dozen households along or near West Reserve Drive - which is Starling's northern boundary - argued that the project is so big and its details are so voluminous that at least two months are needed for the public to properly digest and discuss the details.
"It's impossible for the neighbors and the citizens of Flathead County to become well-informed on the application," said a neighborhood spokesman Marc Nevas.
One of their initial concerns is that the Starling house would be packed dramatically more densely than the surrounding area.
But Planning Board members thought the Starling project was well-planned.
"I hope the neighbors don't think we rubber-stamped it. … This is a good project. We think it was done right," said board chairman Tim Norton.