No final decision until 2008

Whitefish shedules workshop for Dec. 6

By LYNNETTE HINTZE/Daily Inter Lake

A final decision on the proposed critical-areas ordinance in Whitefish will spill into the new year.

The Whitefish City-County Planning Board on Thursday delayed action to allow time for one more work session to work through lingering issues about slopes, reasonable-use exemptions and concerns raised in a peer review of the ordinance.

A work session is scheduled for 6 p.m. Dec. 6; a location will be announced later.

Public comment will continue at the board's Dec. 20 regular monthly meeting. The board is expected to make a recommendation at that point and pass it on to the City Council for consideration in January.

"At some point we have to say we've done all we can do and it becomes their baby and not ours any more," Planning Board member Steve Qunell said, pointing out that the board already has held eight meetings on the controversial drainage law.

About 90 minutes of further public testimony Thursday revealed concerns on a number of levels that still need to be resolved, including:

. The most recent rewrite of the chapter on steep slopes, erosion hazards and geologic instability. Most troubling is a complicated soil stability matrix and subjective language regarding terrain disturbance.

. Criteria for a reasonable-use exemption that would prohibit dwelling units from disturbing no more than 3,000 square feet or 10 percent of the parcel.

. A peer review in which geotechnical engineers say the ordinance is too complicated.

. How much all the mandates will cost both developers and single-lot owners.

SHARON MORRISON used a Rest Haven lake lot she owns as an example of the ordinance's effect on "the ordinary homeowner who simply has a lot" to develop. The portions of that lot controlled by proposed setbacks and buffers and lakeshore protection zone totals 3,320 square feet, leaving Morrison only 551 square feet.

Using the $36,000 per lakefront foot estimate the city used when it ran a bond election for a City Beach addition, Morrison said the city's "taking" in her case amounts to $1.5 million.

"There are some real economic consequences for homeowners," she said, adding that riparian property owners are "bearing the brunt for the whole system" in the proposed ordinance.

If the goal is to maintain water quality, Morrison suggested establishing an annual water-quality assessment for every property and the creation of a water-quality management office that could monitor degradation and fine property owners responsible for water pollution. That, she said, would be more effective than "micromanaging people's property" under the terms of the existing critical areas draft.

"THIS IS quite the political football," Whitefish resident Bick Smith said.

He used the Elk Highlands development on Big Mountain to point out the disparity that exists between what developers are able to do versus what the individual property owner can do.

Smith said Elk Highlands is "a wonderful development," but noted that developers are able to blast on steep slopes to reconfigure the land because it's allowed in the project's planned-unit development, an agreement in which some zoning restrictions are typically relaxed in exchange for mitigating measures.

Developers will be able to use planned-unit developments to offset the effects of the critical areas ordinance, whereas individual property owners don't get that same consideration, he said.

There were a couple of supporters amid the naysayers.

Roger Sherman said it's the community's responsibility to leave water quality as a legacy for future generations. He supports consistent setbacks of at least 100 feet along waterfronts and wants buffers expanded to include the 100-year flood plain.

Sherman and others pushed for stronger restrictions on pesticide and fertilizer use in drainage areas. New language in the latest draft softens pesticide and fertilizer restrictions in critical stormwater drainages.

Karen Reeves said she liked Morrison's suggestion for a water-quality management office. She blamed developers for the complexity of the proposed ordinance and said elements of the original draft were less confusing.

"I'm disappointed in the direction this thing has gone," Reeves said.

At the request of the Planning Board and Mayre Flowers of Citizens for a Better Flathead, the planning staff will put together a summary of public comments for consideration as the board proceeds with its last round of deliberation.

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